55 million people worldwide suffer from dementia, according to the latest statistics from the World Health Organization, and dementia is a condition that affects memory and language causing deterioration in cognitive abilities, which seriously impairs a person’s life and daily routine.
Dementia is a general term that covers a wide range of specific medical conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, says Dr. Bayou Carrie Winchell, medical director for urgent care at St. Mary’s Hospital. You should pay attention to them as follows:
1- Memory loss
It is difficult for people with dementia to identify common places, familiar people or events, because of the damage to the neurons responsible for this in the brain, which hinders the brain’s ability to extract this stored information, especially close events, meaning that the patient can remember things from his past.
2- Difficulty speaking or remembering words
One of the very early signs of dementia is stuttering while speaking and forgetting some very common and often used words, due to damage to specialized neurons in the brain, which prevents the transmission of information stored in the hippocampus, the inner region of the brain responsible for memory.
3- Difficulty completing familiar tasks
Dr. Winchell stresses that traditional, familiar tasks are tedious for people with dementia because the nerve cells responsible for sending signals to muscles lose their function, due to damage or atrophy of those cells.
4- Rush
Impulsiveness in making decisions and not thinking properly is one of the symptoms of dementia because the cerebral cortex, which controls the way we act and make decisions, is affected.
5- Indifference
Dr. Winchel explains, explaining that family and friends will notice that a person with dementia may begin to show a level of indifference to the things they used to care about, and this can be heartbreaking for them as the general health of the affected person appears to be very good, and it is only about with the mind.