Skip to main content

Dementia

TRYING TO UNDERSTAND DEMENTIA
By Armand Rodrigues

Fast-forward to now.  Medical terms such as Alzheimer’s and Dementia have become the norm. “Senior moment” is also used loosely. Worldwide over 47 million people are going through the phase.  Today the symptoms are said to be memory disorders, personality changes, impaired reasoning, disorientation and slurred speech.  

I often wondered what the cause or causes could be.   What follows is what I have garnered from published sources, about the condition. It may or may not resonate with everybody. Conventional wisdom now sees things in a different light. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of Dementia. Dementia is not just a disease of the elderly or those over 65.  The onset of Dementia can start as early as 30 but is harder to diagnose as the cognitive decline is milder or may be attributed to stress, depression, anxiety or psychiatric illness. If detected early, treatments are available that may halt the progression. All of us have five senses.  We can see, smell, taste, feel and hear. As we age, our cognitive faculties diminish in acuity. There was a time when I could look at a school-reunion photograph and instantly recall names.  

Today it takes me longer to associate a name with a face and, at times, I draw a complete blank.   A cook has to be able to see what he/she is cooking, taste it and smell it or else rely on questionable guesswork, with disastrous results. The analogy applies to dementia. Growing evidence suggests that deficits in hearing and seeing can lead to a decline in cognitive abilities (faculty of knowing or perceiving).  Three parts of the brain come into play in this equation: the instinctual brain, the emotional brain, and the thinking brain.  If you encounter any danger, instinct kicks in and helps protect you.  Your emotional brain feels fear and anxiety.  Your thinking brain knows that you are in danger.  In dementia, the thinking brain is what has been found to be functioning erratically.

When you cannot hear well, the brain receives distorted signals and cannot easily and instantly decipher the meaning of messages.  Hearing loss results in faster atrophy in the thinking section that relates to memory, learning and thinking.  Poor or failing eyesight only aggravates matters, as does diabetes and some medications. As well, a person’s inability to recognize familiar smells, like menthol, clove or lemon, is an early warning that Alzheimer’s may be in the offing. In a sense, with these drawbacks, the wires get crossed in the brain and then distort its inner workings and cause mental deterioration and disorientation.  Instant recall becomes difficult.  Short-term memory, reasoning, reading, comprehension and one’s voice are compromised. The brain is in a kind of fog.  One’s personality or behaviour may change.  The feeling of confusion is constant.  An otherwise outgoing person may become insular and reclusive.  Panic sets in.  One may react with violence or aggression.

Uncorrected deficits in hearing and vision can hasten cognitive decline.  If one becomes socially isolated or lonely, it only compounds the problem.  If corrective action is taken on a timely basis, the onset of dementia can be diminished.  Physical and mental exercises have been found to be indispensable in maintaining a degree of stability in our cognitive abilities.  Stimulating activities are part of the solution. To stave loneliness, participation in club, church or volunteer activities can help in social interaction.


And, before we forget, a proper Will and Power of Attorney made when one is in control of one’s cognitive faculties, is a must.

Comments

Vivien Prince said…
This is very useful, as my mum (97) has dementia. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you! Wish you a little light ... for your mum.

Cyprian

Popular posts from this blog

MORE photos of cricketers in Kenya added

More cricket photos added! Asians v Europeans, v Tanganyika, v Uganda, v East Africa, Rhodesia, etc some names missing! Photo Gallery of Kenya Cricket 23 photos: CM Gracias, Blaise d'Cunha Johnny Lobo! Ramanbhai Patel, Mehboob Ali, Basharat Hassan and hundreds others.  

Pinto: Blood on Western and Kenyan hands

  BOOK REVIEW   Pinto: Blood on Western and Kenyan hands   Review by Cyprian Fernandes     Pio Gama Pinto, Kenya’s Unsung Martyr 1927-1965 Edited by Shiraz Durrani [Vita Books, Kenya, 2018, 392 pp.   Pbk, £30, ISBN 978-9966-1890-0-4; distributed worldwide by African Books Collective, www.africanbookscollective.com ]   Less than two years after independence from the British, on 24 February 1965, the Kenyan nationalist Pio Gama Pinto was gunned down in the driveway of his Nairobi home.   His young daughter watched helplessly in the back seat of the family car.   Pinto, a Member of Parliament at the time, was Kenya’s first political martyr.   One man was wrongly accused of his death, served several years in prison and was later released and compensated.   Since then no one has been charged with the murder.   Now the long-awaited book on Pio Gama Pinto is finally here, launched in Nairobi on 16 October 2018....

The sanctuaries trying to save birds of prey from extinction in Kenya

  The sanctuaries trying to save birds of prey from extinction in Kenya (Courtesy of Al Jazeera) Poison, deforestation and power lines have pushed the African raptor population to a 90 per cent decline in the last 40 years. Raptor technician John Kyalo Mwanzia rehabilitates a juvenile fish eagle to flight after it was treated for grounding injuries sustained in a territorial fight at the Lake Naivasha habitat, at Soysambu Raptor Centre. [Tony Karumba/AFP] Simon Thomsett tentatively removes a pink bandage from the wing of an injured bateleur, a short-tailed eagle from the African savannah, where birds of prey are increasingly at risk of extinction. “There is still a long way to go before healing,” Thomsett explains as he lifts up the bird’s dark feathers and examines the injury. “It was injured in the Maasai Mara national park, but we don’t know how,” says the 62-year-old vet who runs the Soysambu Raptor Centre in central Kenya. The 18-month-old eagle, with a dist...