Understanding the symptoms of dementia

With ageing comes many different ailments. When you start to notice something different about an elderly loved one, it does not necessarily mean that they may have dementia. Some memory lapses are common and relatively frequent throughout a healthy life. When trying to understand memory loss, it is therefore important to differentiate between ‘normal’ ageing and changes that indicate a deterioration in your loved one’s health, safety and wellbeing.

Dementia is not a specific disease but an overall term that describes a group of symptoms associated with a progressive decline in memory, reasoning and other thinking skills severe enough to reduce a person’s ability to perform everyday activities. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a common form of dementia, accounting for 60 to 80% of cases. (Vascular dementia, often caused by stroke, is the second most common type of dementia.) It is not a normal part of ageing and is a condition that needs to be expertly and specifically treated.

Click below to read more. (The full article can be found on page 19)