Symptoms of dementia

Symptoms of dementia are a set of specific signs by which a specialist can judge the occurrence or development of this disease. If several symptoms of this pathology occur at the same time, a set of diagnostic measures should be carried out in order to timely and accurately diagnose and determine the reason why the disease develops in order to eliminate it as soon as possible.

Main manifestations

The main symptoms and manifestations of dementia or dementia include problems that arise with a person’s memory, his thinking, speech and behavioral reactions. Each of these symptoms can in its own way indicate a particular form and severity of the course of the disease, so it is important to consider each of them in detail.

Memory changes

When a person develops one of the main causes of dementia – Alzheimer’s disease, memory suffers in the first place. In the case of other causes of dementia, memory may suffer later and less clearly.

At first, a person forgets everything: he does not remember where he is going, where some thing lies, what he just said or wanted to say. However, he reproduces the events of many years ago with encyclopedic accuracy, and this can concern both his personal life and political events of the past, for example. When forgetting the small details of his story, a person freely turns on fantasy and supplements the picture with non-existent facts.

Gradually, memory loss becomes more and more obvious, the time frame of failures expands, and the proportion of fiction increases. Then confabulation occurs, that is, the replacement of real forgotten events with fictions that are probable in everyday life or even improbable. A person may say that they went to the store, although it did not happen (probable actions), or that they flew to the moon (incredible actions). Confabulations are most characteristic in cases of alcoholic or senile dementia.

There are also pseudo-reminiscences, that is, the substitution of time intervals of some specific events. So, an elderly person may begin to feel that he is young again. Gradually there is a forgetting of dates, names of relatives, names of various well-known objects. Later, it begins to seem to the patient that close people who have long gone into another world are alive again, he actively communicates with them and tells everyone around about them. Sometimes a person talks about leaving somewhere, can collect things and leave the house in an unknown direction. All human life is thus completely detached from reality.

When memory is disturbed, the practical skills of a person are simultaneously upset. He does not know what to do with household items, how to unlock the door, confuses hygiene items. By the way, as a result of these processes, many personal hygiene skills are generally forgotten, and a person stops simply washing himself. Sloppiness is a prominent symptom of any type of dementia, slovenliness begins to occur at moderate severity of the disease, and the ability to control urination and stool is lost in the later stages.

Slow thinking

Another clear symptom of dementia is slow thinking and lack of attention. The patient loses the ability to abstract certain actions or events, begins to think very primitively, loses all logical and analytical functions.

The content of the patient’s thought processes becomes very scarce, they slow down greatly. In particular, thinking becomes inflexible, very concrete, perseveration develops. The logic of constructing judgments is violated, false ideas arise (the idea of ​​persecution, betrayal, for example). In severe forms of dementia, thinking becomes fragmented and incoherent.

Features of speech

The disorder of thought processes is ultimately reflected in the quality of the patient’s speech. Such speech acquires many syntactic errors, is characterized by nominal dysphasia. The deep stage of dementia is characterized by the absence of coherent speech, meaningless sounds.

At first, it is very difficult for the patient to choose the words he needs, then a syntactic jam occurs when a person constantly repeats the same words, regardless of what he is talking about. Further, speech is interrupted, sentences do not have endings, the patient cannot perceive and understand someone else’s speech, despite excellent hearing.

With dementia after a stroke, nasal and blurred speech occurs, a person begins to speak inarticulately. So gradually the whole speech is reduced to separate indistinct sounds.

Behavioral responses

Behavior in dementia is initially characterized by complacency and euphoria. Sometimes depressive states already appear in the early stages. The patient becomes self-centered, ceases to sympathize with others, there is malice and suspicion. The main features in this case are apathy, voracity, emotional lability, depression. Sometimes a person can completely refuse food.

The behavior itself can be described as disorganized. The patient ceases to be interested in anything, becomes asocial, may begin to steal, for example. Any changes in a person’s character, especially in old age, must be noticed and diagnosed in a timely manner. Cognitive impairments can influence the behavior of a patient with dementia in such a way that he becomes a pedant, stops learning new things (even reading the news, for example), and when he is loaded with some actions that are not part of his permanent duties, he shows strong aggression.

When dementia progresses, patients gradually cease to monitor themselves, ignoring social conventions, and acquire mannerisms.

Initial manifestations

The initial signs of the onset of dementia are very often missed by relatives and by the patient himself, since they are not particularly indistinguishable from ordinary depression, which 95% of all living people of any age periodically suffer from today. Such symptoms are characterized by a change in memory, a closed personality, some disorientation in space. Only timely diagnosis will help determine the true causes of this condition and stop irreversible processes.

As already mentioned, memory loss is the first and main signal of emerging dementia.

You need to pay attention to this factor if a person asks to repeat the same thing several times, but if he accidentally forgot his car keys at home, this is not a sign of dementia.

Avoidance of familiar things and activities, lethargy are also symptoms of dementia at the initial stage. If a person abruptly abandons the work of a lifetime, does not want to see friends and relatives, it is worth thinking about diagnostics. However, if you want to temporarily take a break from an overly busy schedule, dementia is out of the question.

The feeling of disorientation can be characterized by the sensation that you experience if you sometimes wake up from a deep sleep and cannot immediately understand that you are awake and where you are. With a single and rare such phenomenon, there is no reason to worry, but if it is repeated systematically and aggravated each time, it makes sense to think about the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Late disorientation leads to the inability to determine the season, one’s own location. The progression of Alzheimer’s disease leads to the fact that the patient falls into childhood, or at least considers himself much younger than his present age.

Visuo-spatial difficulties can also be an alarming symptom in the early stages of the disease. When they occur, a person is not able to perceive distance, depth, does not recognize loved ones. It is difficult for him to overcome the stairs, dive into the bath, read. However, you should not worry about the emerging dementia if visual impairment is associated with eye pathologies, such as cataracts.

Decreased ability for written or verbal communication, and a person’s irritability may also indicate the onset of dementia. You should not sound the alarm if the pathological changes are of a short-term nature – everyone has a mood swing or their eyes get tired so that a person begins to write very crookedly. However, with a stable worsening of such symptoms, it is necessary to seek medical help.

Executive functioning is also suppressed in the development of dementia. This is expressed in the fact that a person ceases to perform those functions for which it is necessary to clearly remember the timing and sequence of actions. For example, it became difficult for a person to pay his bills on time every month, although earlier he always did it on time.

The constant illogical shifting of all household items “in place” becomes a sign of the development of dementia. Glasses in the refrigerator, shoes in the oven are symptoms of progressive dementia. The patient does this ostensibly “consciously” because it becomes difficult for him to look for the desired object, and he finds a “suitable” place for it. Judgment during the onset of dementia also weakens. This can be dangerous, as it can make a person who appears normal and does not require outside help become the target of a scam.

The inability to perform well-known activities are clear symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. It is impossible to get lost on the way from the store in your right mind, to forget how to solve a problem that you could solve for 20 years of teaching, therefore, in the event of such situations, it is necessary to urgently undergo appropriate diagnostics.

Symptoms of the last stage

In the last stage of dementia, short-term and long-term memory is completely lost. In parallel with this, a person neglects personal hygiene, can not eat anything, does not walk and does not control the stool. The swallowing function is also disturbed, there is a complete disorientation in space and in one’s own personality. There is no speech, there may be inarticulate sounds. All this indicates an imminent lethal outcome, which can be provoked by the associated vascular pathologies, infectious processes, and pneumonia.

Symptoms of the last stage of dementia can vary, depending on the type of disease:

• frontal dementia;
• senility;
• alcoholic dementia;
• vascular dementia;
• dementia in Parkinson’s disease;
• dementia in children.

With frontal dementia in the last stages, the ability to form complex plans and carry them out is completely disrupted. In the severe stages of senile dementia, people lose all practical skills, memory, and cease to orient themselves in space. Often, speech ability and the ability to control physiological needs are completely lost. The patient in the final stages is in complete physical and mental insanity. In the later stages of alcoholic dementia, people experience severe speech disorders, a tremor of the limbs occurs, the gait changes (becomes mincing), the physical strength of a person is greatly weakened.

With vascular dementia in the later stages, all of the above signs of other types of the disease may be present, since vascular dementia is considered mixed. A characteristic and obligatory feature of the late stage of vascular dementia is a violation of motor activity. In Parkinson’s disease, dementia and its manifestations are in themselves an indicator of the late stage of the disease, since dementia occurs already at the end of the development of this pathology.

Children’s dementia is not only congenital (oligophrenia), but also quite acquired if mental retardation is complicated by injuries, infections and other concomitant pathologies, and also without a congenital factor in the event of childhood oncology, and also due to some hereditary diseases. In this case, all acquired life skills may be lost, the child will constantly need close care and supervision.

External signs

Dementia can be manifested at the earliest stages by external signs that, at first glance, no one will attribute to such a pathology:

• long sleep;
• strange changes in behavior;
• lack of sensitivity to pain;
• occurrence of rosacea.

Boston scientists after many years of observation revealed the relationship between the onset of dementia and the lengthening of night sleep. If an adult begins to sleep more than 9 hours a day, then his risk of memory problems increases by 20%.

Prolonged sleep does not provoke the occurrence of dementia, but is an external sign of such processes. Changes in the structure of the brain lead to increased fatigue, so much more sleep is required.

Sudden changes in behavior, mood and personality reactions can also be considered an early indicator of the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists have found that a change in behavioral responses occurs long before the first memory impairment, so it should be considered the first bell for diagnostic examinations.

Patients with Alzheimer’s pathology cease to feel pain and cannot adequately respond to diseases that occur in the body. At the same time, the ability to react to thermal stimuli, shocks, and so on is lost. The reasons for such a relationship have not yet been clarified by scientists, but the relationship itself today cannot be doubted.

A study by Danish scientists suggests that people with rosacea (chronic skin pathology) have a 25% increased risk of dementia. Therefore, when symptoms of rosacea occur, specialists take into account the likelihood of developing dementia and do their best to diagnose or prevent it in a timely manner.

Features of manifestation in young people

Young people generally experience the same symptoms of dementia as older people. Memory problems in young people are more reflected in their quality of life, since the opportunity to fully perform work functions is lost, and numerous problems arise on this basis. Forgetfulness leads not only to mistakes in immediate professional duties, but also to loss of orientation in the area, being late for work, and ignoring important things.

The concentration of attention falls sharply, the person becomes unable to properly plan his own schedule, which is why there are constant problems with employees and management, which can lead to stress, depression, which will aggravate the course of dementia symptoms.

Awareness of their own problem leads to the fact that young patients with dementia drop out of society, they feel ashamed of themselves and thereby exacerbate their own disease. Loss of interest in life is the main symptom of dementia in young people, which distinguishes it from the senile manifestations of the disease.

Personal changes can also be characterized by the emergence of new habits – a passion for order and cleanliness, collecting non-standard items, and so on. Often, dementia in youth is accompanied by aggressive behavior, as a person periodically realizes his inferiority, but cannot do anything about it. This breeds aggression.

It is important to understand that early-onset dementia is in most cases treatable with timely diagnosis, so don’t be afraid to go to the doctor to determine the reasons for your own strange self-feeling.

Sources of