Dementia

In News

• According to a 2020 report published by the Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders Society of India, there are around 5 million people in India living with dementia.

Key Points

• Facts:
  • Worldwide, 47.5 million people have dementia.
  • The number of people living with dementia worldwide is expected to double every 20 years, going up to 135.5 million by 2050. 

• About Dementia:
  • Dementia is a clinical syndrome caused by a range of diseases or injuries to the brain.
  • The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. 
  • It is implicated in up to 70% of dementia diagnoses. 

• Early Symptoms:
  • Absent-mindedness, 
  • difficulty recalling names and words, 
  • difficulty retaining new information, 
  • disorientation in unfamiliar surroundings, and reduced social engagement. 
  • Impairment in recognising visually presented objects (visual agnosia) despite a normal visual field, 
  • acuity and colour vision.
  • word-finding difficulties (anomic aphasia).
• Advanced Symptoms:
  • Marked memory loss and loss of other cognitive skills,
  • reduced vocabulary and less complex speech patterns. 
  • monosyllabic speech, 
  • psychotic symptoms, 
  • behavioral disturbance, 
  • loss of bladder and bowel control, and reduced mobility.
• Prevention:
  • The WHO has identified preventing Alzheimer’s disease to be a key element in the strategy to fight the world’s dementia epidemic. 
  • Economic analyses have found that delaying the onset of the disease by even one year could reduce its prevalence by 11%, while a delay of five years could halve it.
  • These medicines lead to notable but temporary symptomatic improvements in 10-15% of persons with dementia.
  • Prevention programmes usually focus on lifestyle risk factors – such as sedentary behaviour, unhealthy diet, smoking, and excessive alcohol use – together with mental wellbeing and risk of cardiovascular diseases.
• Dementia care:
  • To manage the important aspects of the disease, with a goal to reversing their effects or to delay its progression in the brain. 
  • To manage the cognitive, neuropsychiatric, and functional symptoms of the disease.

Source: TH