Markethealthbeauty.com | Types of Dementia in The Elderly – It is undeniable that the older a person is, the health condition and ability to think easily decreases. This condition can be a sign of an elderly person experiencing dementia.
Dementia is a condition that causes a decrease in memory to thinking (cognitive) abilities. If an elderly person has dementia, this will affect their social skills, lifestyle, and daily activities.
Someone who has dementia will also have difficulty taking care of himself, have difficulty understanding what is seen, have difficulty focusing, and have difficulty communicating with people around him.
Types of Dementia in The Elderly
The main cause of dementia is due to damage to nerve cells in the brain. Although as we get older the number of nerve cells, each person will decrease, in people with dementia, the decline that occurs is more significant.
Based on the cause, dementia is divided into several types, including:
1. Vascular Dementia
Vascular dementia is the most common types of dementia in the elderly. Vascular dementia occurs due to damage to brain cells due to impaired blood flow to the brain. This condition eventually causes a stroke.
A stroke can cause a person to experience vascular dementia, but not all strokes can cause dementia. In addition to stroke, other diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and high cholesterol are also prone to experiencing the risk of vascular dementia.
2. Alzheimer’s dementia
Many people think that Alzheimer’s and dementia are the same disease. However, both are different diseases. Dementia is not always caused by Alzheimer’s, but Alzheimer’s causes dementia.
This type of dementia is caused by the deposition of proteins in the brain that interfere with the work of cells in the nerves. As a result, sometimes the messages conveyed to the brain are disrupted. That’s what makes Alzheimer’s sufferers experience memory problems.
3. Parkinson’s dementia
The next, Parkinson’s dementia is one types of dementia in the elderly. Parkinson’s dementia is often associated with movement difficulties, physical mobility problems, and tremors. The fact is that the disease is a disease of the nervous system that interferes with the body’s ability to control balance movements.
Parkinson’s dementia is caused by changes in the chemical structure of the brain. This ultimately causes a decrease in the cognitive abilities of the elderly.
4. Dementia with Lewy bodies
Next, the Lewy body dementia is one types of dementia in the elderly. Lewy body type dementia, occurs due to the buildup of alpha-synuclein protein in nerve cells so that it interferes with the delivery of chemical signals in the brain.
This type of Lewy body dementia is a type of dementia that is difficult to recognize at first, because the symptoms are similar to Alzheimer’s or other psychological disorders such as schizophrenia.
5. Frontotemporal dementia
Frontotemporal dementia is one types of dementia in the elderly that occurs as a result of damage to the frontal and side (temporal) nerve cells of the brain due to mutations in certain genes.
This area of the brain plays a role in regulating the ability to move, speak, emotions, to planning. So, if this dementia attack, it will certainly cause a decrease in these abilities.
It should be noted that the symptoms that appear also vary, depending on which area of the brain is affected.
6. Mixed dementia
Mixed dementia is a condition when a person experiences more than one type of dementia at the same time. For example, a person may have frontotemporal dementia and Parkinson’s dementia at the same time.
This causes the symptoms experienced by sufferers to vary greatly, depending on the type of dementia experienced.
7. Dementia due to alcohol consumption
Consuming alcohol excessively causes disease nests, one of which is dementia. The type of dementia that attacks due to too much alcohol consumption is called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome.
This condition occurs because when the body consumes excess alcohol it makes the body deficient in vitamin B1. The reason is, this vitamin is needed because the brain needs to convert sugar into energy.
The following are seven types of dementia that usually affect the elderly. Some types do have the same symptoms, but many are different. So the possibility of treatment is also different.
Therefore, for someone who is elderly it is important to have regular doctor checks so that this disease can be detected earlier and received treatment more quickly.
Besides that, do healthy living habits such as adequate exercise, control cholesterol levels, not smoking, maintaining an ideal body weight, because it can help reduce the risk of dementia in the elderly.
Reference:
- HealthReplies.com (2022). dementia Retrieved December 25, 2022.
- Alzheimer’s Association. Types of Dementia. Retrieved December 25, 2022.
- National Institute on Aging (2022). What Is Dementia? Symptoms, Types, and Diagnosis. Retrieved December 25, 2022.
