Dementia is one of the most insidious diseases that can develop in old age.
Symptoms of dementia are subtle, and often you don’t even realize you’re developing dementia.
To make it easier to recognize early symptoms, you want to do a alarm bells list which should arouse in us the suspicion that the shadow of dementia is near.
We will also see that one of the most common conditions for those at risk of developing dementia is not depression, as everyone believes, but another condition common to many people. Which? Let’s find out in the next few lines.
The first symptoms of dementia
Although one diagnosis of dementia can be performed only by a doctor you can tell yourself that something is wrong. Once you understand that you are facing a problem that could get worse over time, you can turn to a specialist to run for cover.
Dementia it is a disease that can be recognised by the following symptoms, common to the early stages of the disease:
- Problems in activities to be carried out in family;
- Forgetting the right word to say while talking;
- Don’t orient yourself well in time and space;
- Lost progressive of capacity mnemonic;
- Difficulty a to focus;
- Mood swings.
Furthermore, another symptom not to be underestimated is apathy. Being apathetic means feel a total lack of interest towards what is happening in the world we have environment. The parola apatia comes from the Greek one”Pathos”which corresponds to the Italian equivalent of “Emotion“. In initial position we have the privative alphawhich wants to give an equivalent meaning toabsence of emotions. It is precisely the absence of emotions that can lead to a decline in cognitive facultieseven more so for those with cerebrovascular disease.
The journal of neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry recently published a Research in which the relationships between depression, apathy and dementia.
During the research the effect of apathy on a group of patients suffering from one was analysed pathology linked to malfunction of the small cerebral vessels.
In this case it was highlighted that it’s not depression to induce neurodegenerative processes, but apathy.
Research on dementia fostered by apathy
The subjects tested by the scientists all suffered from vascular dementia. These patients were divided into two groups, and in both it was highlighted that who felt a greater degree of apathy ran a higher risk to suffer from dementia.
Respect to subjects suffering from depression, nobody between them gave signs of a aggravation of his own conditionleading to the exclusion that one of them could develop a form of dementia.
According to experts, you have to be careful of your levels of apathy. If we prove proactive and come out of our apathetic states, we would certainly have less chance of developing the pathology.
Some tips to reduce the risk of dementia
The lack of emotion it is therefore a lot worse dell’excessive emotionalityat least for those who run the risk of developing apathy.
Although there are no methods to prevent or completely eliminate dementia in the elderly, it is possible to perform simple memory exercises to stay fit and reduce the risk of developing dementia.
These little exercises are first and foremost thetrain to recognize the streets which are traveled by public transport. To do this, that would be enough associate to the name of the via that flows before us, one peculiarity of a building in that street.
Another exercise could be to to match al Name of a persona one of his particular physical feature.
Finally, one of the most effective methods to train the mind is the Handwriting. Writing by hand, according to research, allows to keep the mind trained much better than other methods, against dementia.