Discovering Dementia

It’s frustrating when you meet someone in the street whom you can't recognize. It's even more embarrassing when that person calls you by your first name and you can't remember his.

That has happened to me on several occasions. You know that person's name is at the tip of your tongue. But try as you might, you can't utter it - until sometime later when you finally remember.

Experts say these occasional lapses of memory are normal. And they can happen to anyone, often as a result of anxiety, inattention or distraction. That means it's excusable and perfectly normal if you forget where you put your keys or where you parked your car once in a while. In a few moments, those little details will resurface again.

But if you're the kind of person who keeps forgetting things - even what you just had for breakfast - and there's no reason for you to do so, you could be suffering from a degenerative disorder called dementia. And you don't have to be old to get it.

Dementia is known by many names. Some refer to it as general cerebral dysfunction, cerebral insufficiency or organic brain syndrome. Whatever you call, it's something most people would rather forget. The condition is characterized by a decline in intellectual and social abilities to the point where you can't even look after yourself.

The "demented" among us are in good company. At present, 24.3 million people are currently estimated to have dementia, and 4.6 million new cases are diagnosed each year. The burden brought about by the disease is not only physical but economical as well.

Dr. Barry Reisberg of the Aging & Dementia Research Center, Department of Psychiatry at New York University Medical Center, said more than 60 percent of 1.5 million patients in nursing homes have this condition which costs the American public millions of dollars yearly. He added that the incidence of dementia is increasing due to our increasing lifespan and it won't be long before the disease replaces stroke as the third leading cause of death.

These figures are a cause for concern because dementia won't just rob a person of his health; it also leads to the "loss of human dignity," according to Dr. Jorg Traber of the Department of Neurobiology of the Bayer Company in Germany.

What makes dementia such an embarrassing and debilitating disease? While aging may produce some forms of memory loss and a decrease in the powers of concentration, dementia carries these problems to the extreme.

Aside from severe memory loss, dementia can affect one's judgment, the ability to recognize objects, and impair speech. Abnormal behavior and personality changes become increasingly evident as the disease progresses.

In very severe cases, the person becomes something short of a vegetable. He is no longer concerned nor able to maintain personal hygiene and cannot communicate basic needs. He also loses control over bowel and bladder movements and remains bed-ridden for the rest of his life.

"Clinical experience tells us that when a patient complains of forgetfulness, it is most likely normal forgetfulness. The demented patient usually will not complain of forgetfulness because he or she is not aware of it. Also, normal forgetfulness shows no progression, while the forgetfulness seen in dementia will progress,” explained Professor Hsin-Nan Lin of the Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University in Taipei in Asian Medical News.

“Slight impairment of judgment can be noticed by deterioration of ability to solve everyday problems such as poor adjustment of dress according to weather change, or adding inappropriate seasoning when preparing food. Personality change can be observed by the appearance of childish behavior, or the change or neglect of long established habits," Lin added.

What are the types of dementia? Find out in the second part of this series. To enhance your memory and support healthy brain function, take Neurovar. For more information on this powerful supplement, go to http://www.neurovar.com/.