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Louis Theroux - Extreme Love: Dementia

Louis is in Phoenix, Arizona, a city known as America’s “capital of dementia”. He’s here to see how relatives cope as their loved ones slip into a “twilight world of half-remembered reality”. Selinda, who is just 49 and has Alzheimer’s, can’t dial the numbers on a phone to make a call, while Nancy, who is cared for at home by her husband, can’t remember her own name. There are flourishes of personality, but ultimately the partners must endure the gradual loss of their loved ones with patience and love.

• (click here to watch)

Dementia is a loss of brain function that occurs with certain diseases. It affects memory, thinking, language, judgment, and behavior.

Most types of dementia are nonreversible (degenerative). Nonreversible means the changes in the brain that are causing the dementia cannot be stopped or turned back. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia.

Lewy body disease is a leading cause of dementia in elderly adults. People with this condition have abnormal protein structures in certain areas of the brain.

Dementia also can be due to many small strokes. This is called vascular dementia.

Dementia symptoms include difficulty with many areas of mental function, including:

• Language

• Memory

• Perception

• Emotional behavior or personality

• Cognitive skills (such as calculation, abstract thinking, or judgment)

Dementia usually first appears as forgetfulness.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is the stage between normal forgetfulness due to aging and the development of dementia. People with MCI have mild problems with thinking and memory that do not interfere with everyday activities. They are often aware of the forgetfulness. Not everyone with MCI develops dementia.

The early symptoms of dementia can include:

• Difficulty performing tasks that take some thought, but that used to come easily, such as balancing a checkbook, playing games (such as bridge), and learning new information or routines

• Getting lost on familiar routes

• Language problems, such as trouble finding the name of familiar objects

• Losing interest in things you previously enjoyed, flat mood

• Misplacing items

• Personality changes and loss of social skills, which can lead to inappropriate behaviors

As the dementia becomes worse, symptoms are more obvious and interfere with the ability to take care of yourself. The symptoms may include:

• Change in sleep patterns, often waking up at night

• Difficulty doing basic tasks, such as preparing meals, choosing proper clothing, or driving

• Forgetting details about current events

• Forgetting events in your own life history, losing awareness of who you are

• Having hallucinations, arguments, striking out, and violent behavior

• Having delusions, depression, agitation

• More difficulty reading or writing

• Poor judgment and loss of ability to recognize danger

• Using the wrong word, not pronouncing words correctly, speaking in confusing sentences

• Withdrawing from social contact

[PubMed source]

(via slutgarden)