Dementia

Does Rilassáre's alternative medicine replace traditional medicine?

No, alternative medicine is a complementary approach to treatments that the patient may already be undergoing and is not contraindicated in any case due to its safety and lack of adverse reactions or side effects. Alternative medicine helps strengthen your immune system and regulate your body's acidity for optimal functioning.

What is dementia?

Dementia is a group of thinking and social symptoms that interfere with daily life. It is not a specific disease but a group of disorders characterized by the deterioration of at least two brain functions, such as memory and reasoning.

Symptoms of dementia may include:

Symptoms include memory loss, restricted social abilities, and limited reasoning that interferes with daily activities. People may experience:

• • Cognitive: Mental decline, inability to speak or understand words, confusion, late-day confusion, disorientation, inability to recognize familiar things, or fabrication.
• • Behavioral: Agitation, personality changes, wandering and getting lost, lack of self-control, or irritability.
• • Mood: Nervousness, emotional ups and downs, anxiety, or loneliness.
• • Psychological: Hallucinations, depression, or paranoia.
• • Muscular: Inability to coordinate muscle movements or unsteady walking.
• • Other common symptoms: Memory loss, falls, slurred speech, or sleep disorders.

Causes of dementia

One of the main causes is the loss of brain function that occurs due to certain diseases. This affects one or more brain functions such as memory, thinking, language, judgment, or behavior.

Dementias are often grouped by what they have in common, such as the protein(s) deposited in the brain or the part of the brain affected. Some disorders mimic dementia, such as those caused by medication reactions or vitamin deficiencies, and may improve with treatment.

Types of dementia

Progressive dementias

The types of dementia that are progressive and not reversible include the following:

• • Alzheimer's disease: This is the most common cause of dementia.

Although not all causes of Alzheimer's disease are known, experts do know that a small percentage are related to mutations in three genes that can be inherited. While several different genes may be involved, one important gene that increases risk is apolipoprotein.

People with Alzheimer's disease have plaques and tangles in the brain. The plaques are clumps of a protein called beta-amyloid, and the tangles are fibrous knots made of tau protein. These clumps are believed to damage healthy neurons and their connections.

• • Vascular dementia: The second most common type of dementia, caused by damage to the blood vessels that supply the brain. Vascular problems can cause strokes or damage the brain in other ways, such as harming the gray matter fibers.

Common symptoms of vascular dementia include difficulty solving problems, slow thinking, and loss of concentration and organization. These tend to be more noticeable than memory loss.

• • Lewy body dementia: Lewy bodies are abnormal balloon-shaped protein clumps found in the brains of people with Lewy body dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease. This is one of the most common types of progressive dementia.

Common signs and symptoms include acting out dreams during sleep, visual hallucinations, and problems with concentration and attention. Other signs include slow or uncoordinated movements, tremors, and stiffness (parkinsonism).

• • Frontotemporal dementia: This group of disorders is characterized by the breakdown of nerve cells and their connections in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. These brain regions are generally associated with personality, behavior, and language. Symptoms often affect behavior, personality, thinking, judgment, language, and movement.
• • Mixed dementia: Brain autopsy studies of people 80 or older with dementia show that many had a combination of several causes, such as Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, and Lewy body dementia. Research is ongoing to understand how mixed dementia affects symptoms and treatments.

Other disorders linked to dementia

• • Huntington's disease: Caused by a genetic mutation, this disease weakens certain nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms, including significant decline in cognitive abilities, typically appear in the 30s or 40s.
• • Traumatic brain injury (TBI): Most often caused by repeated head trauma. People like boxers, football players, or soldiers may develop TBI.

Depending on the part of the brain affected, TBI can cause symptoms of dementia such as depression, irritability, memory loss, and speech impairment. It can also cause parkinsonism. Symptoms may not appear until years after the trauma.

• • Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: This rare brain disorder usually occurs in people without known risk factors. It may be caused by infectious protein deposits called prions. Symptoms usually appear after age 60.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease usually has no known cause, but it may be inherited. It can also result from exposure to affected brain or nervous system tissue, such as through a cornea transplant.

• • Parkinson’s disease: Many people with Parkinson’s disease eventually develop symptoms of dementia (Parkinson’s disease dementia).

To diagnose the cause of dementia, the doctor must recognize the pattern of lost skills and functions and determine what a person is still capable of. Recently, biomarkers have become available to make a more accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

Treatments for dementia

Medications and therapy can help manage symptoms. Some causes are reversible.

• • Therapies
• • Neuropsychological rehabilitation and occupational therapy
• • Medications
• • Medications to improve cognition

Treatment focuses on addressing the underlying cause of dementia, when known. It depends on the stage of the disease.

Both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments aim to reduce symptoms and, in some patients, slightly slow down the deterioration.

It’s important to understand that when brain cells are destroyed or deteriorated, they cannot be recovered. Currently, no treatment can stop the progressive damage of neurons, but some treatments can stabilize the disease for a time.

It is important to treat other symptoms as they appear: depression, apathy, insomnia, and behavioral disorders.

The entire professional team treating this condition is involved in dementia care—doctors, nurses, social workers, and psychologists. It is a comprehensive approach focused on both patients and their families.

Pharmacological treatment

There is no treatment that halts or modifies the progression of the disease. Some medications help temporarily relieve symptoms.

Medications that treat the underlying disease and help slow brain deterioration include acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. Currently, three drugs are used: rivastigmine, donepezil, and galantamine. They are prescribed for mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. In more advanced stages, another drug, memantine, is used alone or with the others. Common side effects include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Medications that alleviate symptoms caused by behavioral changes are also used. Depending on the predominant symptoms and the stage of dementia, different groups of psychotropic drugs may be used, including anxiolytics, antidepressants, antipsychotics, and antiepileptics.

Non-pharmacological treatment

This consists of group or individual activities in leisure settings or through complementary techniques that work on lost brain functions while strengthening and preserving those that remain.

Techniques include memory exercises, motor skills training, recognition of daily activities, language exercises, reading, and writing. These help manage symptoms and are a key part of dementia treatment.

Objectives of non-pharmacological treatment:

• • Stimulate and maintain mental abilities as long as possible.
• • Avoid social disconnection and promote personal autonomy.
• • Stimulate self-identity and self-esteem.
• • Reduce stress and avoid abnormal psychological reactions.
• • Improve cognitive and functional performance.
• • Increase autonomy in basic daily activities such as bathing, eating, and dressing.

Complications of dementia

• • Poor nutrition. Many people with dementia eventually eat less or stop eating, which affects nutrient intake.
• • Pneumonia
• • Inability to perform self-care tasks
• • Personal safety issues
• • Death

Dementia prevention

According to new guidelines published by the World Health Organization (WHO), regular physical activity, not smoking, avoiding harmful alcohol use, managing body weight, following a healthy diet, and maintaining appropriate blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels are the best ways to prevent dementia.