Symptoms of Dementia

Diseases or disorders concerning mental abilities or memory like dementia are more common now than ever thanks to our irregularities in daily life style and psychological pressure involved in daily turmoil of life in modern living condition. The symptoms of dementia contrary to the so called estimation are not only limited among the aged or elderly population but increasingly becoming common in people in their early fifties or even prior to that. Dementia that manifests in progressive loss of memory and acquired habit in day to day life leading is no more a disease that the people in their late sixties or seventies are vulnerable to. If you have dementia in the beginning you may only experience increasing forgetfulness and then suddenly you cannot realize the connection of things and you utterly suffer sometimes in feeling disoriented amidst people and things. As the disease progresses to claim all your cognitive function and memory you become duller, dumb and dependent upon the assistance of others in performing even the simplest of daily life activities. Let us have a look at the clinical factors and symptoms of dementia one by one.

Clinical factors

Dementia is a progressive disorder corresponding to loss of mental abilities. That means that the symptoms of dementia will get gradually worse over time to reduce memory and mental abilities on a continuous basis and that is the reason why dementia is so fatal. Decline in the cognitive ability, memory and brain function ultimately lead to deterioration of organic capacities and physical health and that make the condition worse. Dementia is more common in people of older age or which is medically considered as geriatric age or an age more than 65. The dementia that occurs in people earlier than this age is called early onset dementia. Dementia in majority of cases is the outcome of the process of ageing and cannot be reversed to normal condition except a fewer cases that amounts to not more than 10% of the total number of cases of dementia.

The symptoms of dementia encompasses every area of our living interactions and perceptions and contrary to popular and so called saying dementia is just not a disorder of losing memory but losing all mental abilities like, cognition, perception, etc. that directly affects the patterns of thought, feelings, interactions, orientation, sensitivities and activities without which one cannot live being conscious of his surrounding and scheme of things outside. This is the reason why most of the people who suffer from dementia results in being dependent on the caregivers at the matured stage of their medical condition, if not earlier than that.

Clinical symptoms

Some of the most common symptoms of dementia that are observed across various types of cases include the following.

1. Loss of memory, especially short-term memory at the initial stage.
2. Difficulty in coordinating activities that involve little bit of planning and discretion.
3. Spell of feeling utterly disoriented at times.
4. Increasing dependence in performing simple tasks and activities of daily life.
5. Utter confusion and changes in behavior showing anger or depression.
6. Problems concerning speech and communication, especially memorizing the right words.
7. Decreased or faulty visual perception.
8. Inability in paying attention.