Dementia

Dementia is a condition commonly found in elderly people. This tends to increase due to the rise in the number of elderly population, which is 10% of people ages more than 60 years old. This has major impacts on the patient’s physical, mental, and living. Moreover, the caregiver burden is also increased. Therefore, understanding of the diagnosis and cares are crucial to deviate patient’s problems and improve patient and caregiver’s quality of lives.

• Alzheimer’s Disease is one of the causes of dementia. It is mostly found in elderly patients. It is the degeneration of the brain which affects its memory function. Apart from Alzheimer’s disease, there are more diseases causing dementia which each disease has different causes and prognosis.
• Treatment If you notice that you tend to forget more often, do not forget to see if you organize your work plan well, have stress, get enough rest, or have full consciousness or not. As these are the causes of the forgetfulness such as forget key, phone, etc. However, if we notice that our family member tends to ask the same questions repeatedly without realizing it or cannot remember things we have told them earlier, keep telling the same story, lose sense of direction, cannot solve easy problem, have emotional and behavioral changes, these may be the symptoms of dementia. It is usually unnoticeable by the patients themselves. Patients should receive diagnosis examination because if the treatable cause is detected, permanent dementia can be prevented.

For dementia patients that have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, in the present, there are oral medications to decelerate the degeneration and improve elderly patients’ quality of life. Patients are required to receive treatment and medication prescribed by neurologists.

• Recovery Ability to do daily activities is essential as it is the indication of elderly patients’ quality of life. It reduces the chance of having any complications which may lead to poor quality of life and reduce life span. Teaching them to do some small activities in daily life, training them to do activities by themselves, taking care of them emotionally, socially, and mentally are also important.