How to Identify Dementia

Alzheimer's and dementia awareness ribbon

Dementia is a degenerative disease of the brain that progresses over time. If you don't get immediate help when you start noticing symptoms of dementia, treatment becomes useless. Reading this article will teach you how to identify dementia.

Instructions

Pay Attention

1. Pay attention to cognitive functions. With dementia, patients often start to lose their cognitive functions. Some of the cognitive functions that may be lost or diminished due to dementia include losing your ability to walk and talk. When you start noticing these symptoms, they may or may not be evidence of dementia and the only way to tell would be to let your doctor know so that she can perform tests to see if you are getting dementia and need to begin treatment.

2. Pay attention to mental functions. Losing your ability to think independently, make good judgments and concentrate for long periods of time, along with the loss of a few other mental functions, are evidence of dementia. When you start noticing these symptoms, let your doctor know right away so she can perform a set of mental evaluations to determine if you are getting dementia.

3. Pay attention to other bodily functions. In the progressed form of dementia, patients generally can't live alone and can barely stand without assistance. They are very forgetful. Another symptom of dementia is the loss of certain bodily functions, which include the decreased ability to eat and swallow your own food and going to the bathroom on your own. Usually, by this time, dementia has progressed to its final and most advanced stage. Family members of dementia patients should be on the look out for these symptoms and hire round the clock professional help to assist dementia patients with their every day lives.

Tips & Warnings

• Dementia is a progressive disease. Don't procrastinate. When you, or someone you know, is experiencing symptoms of dementia, get immediate medical attention.

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• WebMD