Act before dementia alters your parents permanently

Dementia is an ageing person’s biggest enemy. It strikes quietly, and most of the time family caregivers are not aware of their parents’ decline.

They are certainly surprised by the personality change that happens in their elders. But can’t figure out why this is happening.

Most hope that the changes are only a passing phase and will go away.

What they don’t realise is that one by one the neurons or healthy brain cells are shutting down in their parents’ brains. The death of each neuron means that transmission of electric signals between brain cells starts getting disrupted. Gradually, a person starts losing some mental faculty or other.

It is not that other elderly persons don’t suffer a loss of neurons. The difference is that dementia patients lose neurons at a faster pace.

According to the National Institute of Aging, “Dementia ranges in severity from the mildest stage, when it is just beginning to affect a person’s functioning, to the most severe stage, when the person must depend completely on others for basic activities of daily living, such as feeding oneself.”

Dementia, as it progresses, affects the thinking, remembering, and reasoning abilities of the elderly.

Some of the symptoms of dementia that family members notice but are unable to connect to this debilitating disease include:

• Loss of judgement and confusion
• Difficulty in forming words
• Difficulty in reading or writing
• Loss of memory
• Unable to recognise familiar places
• Difficulty in handling money
• Repeating questions even when answers have been given
• Taking longer to complete normal daily tasks
• Loss of interest in daily activities or family happenings
• Hallucinating or experiencing delusions or paranoia
• Not caring about feelings of others
• Problems with movement
• Difficulty in changing clothes, bathing or toilet activities

The bewildered family members start distancing themselves from their elderly parents. This further complicates the situation. Loneliness sets in among dementia patients. They feel lost, helpless and betrayed.

It is important to see a neurologist once an elderly famliy member starts exhibiting such behaviour. With early diagnosis, the damage can be minimised.

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