How to Recognize Dementia in a Family Member, part 1

We are pleased to share the following, authored by guest writer Anuradha Bhattacharjee, who works with an eldercare service in India, www.tribecacare.com
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The first, inexplicable instances of an elderly parent beginning to forget simple things like names or events or even where she or he kept important documents and cannot remember ‘where’… make you sit up and worry.

Is this dementia? The beginning of Alzheimer’s disease? You have been reading a lot about dementia, your friends are talking about it, because their parents may be sufferers. And suddenly, it seems to have come home to you.

First, understand what dementia means. Dementia itself is an umbrella term which describes various forms of cognitive decline and can be caused by illness, ageing, strokes and even head injuries. The simplest medical definition is: “dementia is the process of cognitive deterioration when the healthy nerve cells (neurons) in your brain stop working, due to age or illness and die”.

Part of this is a natural process of ageing but when it happens faster and to a greater degree than normal, it is dementia. Or being ‘out of your mind’, from the Latin ‘de-mentis’. Alzheimer’s, Lewy Body dementia, Fronto-temporal dementia, Parkinson’s are all diseases which lead to dementia.

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