Age-Related Memory Impairment

A proper diagnosis of dementia is essential, in order to rule out other conditions that may have symptoms similar to dementia and that may be treatable, including depression, chest and urinary infections, severe constipation and brain tumours . Also to rule out other possible causes of confusion, such as poor sight or hearing; emotional changes and upsets, such as moving or bereavement; or the side-effects of certain drugs or combinations of drugs. Folllow up diagnosis can enable a patient to access advice, information and support

Dementia Syndrome is a condition caused by a set of symptoms. These symptoms can include but are not limited to: - memory loss, mood changes, communication difficulties, difficulty understanding or thinking.

a) Depression- individuals with severe depression suffer with poor memories and lack concentration. They will also become less motivated and become withdraw. These are all signs of dementia. A general practitioner may think that it is more likely that an elderly person is suffering from dementia than depression.

Once you reach a certain point in your life how do you just forgot? Is there a certain point in your life where your memory is affected? The common question going around is does your memory decline with age. One reason this is important because it will affect all of us. We will all get old and this can greatly affect our health. The research can show how our older age will affect our memory.

Individuals that have dementia will have different levels of memory issues depending on the severity of their illness. When the disease is in its younger stage the memory is mildly affected and can present itself as absentminded or forgetfulness. We all from time to time forget where the house keys are for instance, so it is more difficult to spot. Later on in the development of dementia the individual will suffer a greater degree of memory loss, also lacking in communication skills and slow speech. Their reasoning will be compromised and often get confused about simple things, making decisions will,be a struggle for them. My grandmother had dementia and would go shopping with a list of items and forgetting about the list and shopping completely,

Mild cognitive impairment is rapidly becoming one of the most common clinical manifestations affecting the elderly. The aim of this study was to identify risk factors associated with the development of cognitive impairment in the elderly. A crosssectional study was conducted. Study independent variables such as age, gender, education level, daily sleep duration, and consumption of drugs were collected and two screening tests were used to detect the presence of cognitive impairment. It was observed that sleeping for more than 9 daily hours, the consumption of benzodiazepines, older age, female gender, and illiteracy were risk factors for cognitive

One of the first rules of science is correlation is not causation. This simply means that finding the cause to an effect can be very difficult. Dementia is a group of symptoms not one disease that causes loss and impairment in memory, thinking, and social abilities that severely impacts quality of life1. The most common cause of progressive dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. Because dementia covers so many symptoms, it is difficult to study in comparison to other psychological disorders. One link that seems to be lightly touched upon is the similarities of dementia and depression. Mayo Clinic would describe depression as “a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest.”

Delirium is also referred to acute state of confusion that presents in three forms. Its symptoms are severe confusion and bewilderment in the hyperactive form it is also characterized by an equally sudden pulling out from dealings with friends and the rest of the outside world. In the third form that is mixed delirium all these symptoms occur in an individual, it however occurs in people in their later years, Birks, J 2006. Delirium is also characterized by attention deficits, irregular course and a broad-spectrum severe ineptitude of performance. Cognitive deficits, perceptual deficits, tainted sleep-wake cycle, psychotic features and changes in arousal. These psychotic features include hallucinations and delusions. Delirium is a clinical set of symptoms and not a disease and mostly consequences from a core disease. Dementia is a broad category of brain disease that is often characterized by the ability to clear reasoning and the ability to thin are lost resulting into a severe effect on how one functions. People with dementia have symptoms such as agitation, balance problems, tremor, speech and language difficulty, memory distortions, depression or anxiety, disinhibition and impulsivity, wandering or restlessness and trouble eating and swallowing, Rochon P.A. 2009.

Many times, dementia is not the result of just one condition, but several. For instance, the combination of Alzheimer ’s disease, strokes, Parkinson ’s disease and depression may lead to dementia.

If your loved one has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, learning everything you can about the common form of dementia is critical to getting the best care for him or her. Understanding the truth of common Alzheimer's myths can help you and your loved one understand the disease better.

Cognitive decline and symptoms of attention deficits, executive dysfunction, and memory impairments describe dementia in the elderly. Particular frequency oscillations that occur within the affected brain regions could be used to classify some idiopathic dementias as specific diseases and could contribute additional information to the clinical data in evaluating age changes that are of benefit for a treatment of cognitive alterations. Whether changes of event-related potentials (ERPs) and frequency band responses (ERBRs) for sensory stimuli are related to plasticity in neural recruitment during stabilization of sensory/cognitive mechanisms accompanying aging or are underlying pathological changes remains unknown.

The brain is one of the most important and complex organs in the human body. It is able to allow us to experience things like our thoughts, actions, feelings, and everything we see or touch on the daily basis. Without our brain we would not be able to remember anything. Memory is when the mind and its functions can store informations that you’re taught and it has the ability to remember it. Our minds are able to process and remember things through experiences and studies over the years. This is all apart of the way the brain works. During this study, psychologists used different experiments types of tests by and research to

It is a no brainer that maintaining your health will effectively bring along good results pertaining your well-being. For Christina, her cognitive functions seem to be working effectively in her favor. Cognitive aging is concerned with the nerve impulses like touch and feel, muscle movements, and reasoning such as acquiring new information. Examples of these performances were present when Christina would grab her husband's hand, play her guitar and read the bible or her music book. I bring up the topic of cognitive aging because the mind itself could be a potential reason towards life expansion as well. Christina brought up her faith as being a source of a long healthy life. Because of her faith, she experiences positive stimulus such as peace,

Remembering past events is such a fascinating process the human brain creates, known as memories. Recalling delightful experiences make living ecstatic, however; remembering the tragic events can make living miserable. Recollecting the pleasant and forgetting the unpleasant memories, both are essential for normal living. This makes memory is a tool that is crucial to the daily lives of human beings. People believe memories are accurate and precise; however, memories are not like a video camera, making them unreliable. The human brain is the most complex organ in the human body and a memory is just a small fraction of its function. What is memory and how can Alzheimer’s affect a memory?

"I lost my keys again," my mother exclaimed at dinner a few nights ago, "I really am getting old." This use of old age as a justification for memory deficits is extremely common. Many people relate old age with loss of memory and other neurobiological functions. Why is it that aging seems to go hand in hand with losing and forgetting things? Is there a neurobiological explanation for this phenomenon?