Dementia – Facts, Stats and Prevention
Dementia or senility has a growth rate of 7 per minute, according to the survey the number stands at 24.3 million people who are affected in the world today. It is believed to have increased to 42.3 million by the year 2020.
The rate in the developing countries are more than the developed countries, with China having the most, with all the people in the developed put together. This may be due to the fact that the people have longer life spans in China.
Since the affected area of cognition is memory, attention, language and problem solving, families will have to care for them round the clock as there is no cure for this degenerative disease. Till the second half of the 20th century this disease was regarded as a part of growing old or senile as it was called. It was the discovery by the neurologist Dr. Robert Katzmann, who found a connection between senile dementia and Alzheimer’s disease that led to further research into this disease.
The symptoms of dementia are either reversible or irreversible depending on the study of causes. This disease can be diagnosed only after 6 months of the symptoms seen in a person. Only less than 10% of these were due to the causes could be reversed with treatment.
Loss of memory is not the only problem with this disease, the disability to learn new things, loss of the pattern of feeling, thoughts, to reason and to recall past and present events are some of the others. As it worsen the person will become disoriented and also lose their inhibitions where they urinate or pass motion anywhere and even walk out without any clothes on.
According to a study in Sweden which was focused on twins, there seems to be a connection between obesity and dementia. They did not actually prove this but all the evidences were pointing in that direction. The study which was carried out during 30 years states that gaining weight during the middle years is a risk factor for getting this degenerative disease. 9,000 Swedish people were studied to get this data. The overweight ones in their middle years were found have reasoning and thinking problems. Out of this 4% were found to have actual dementia, while 1-2 % had uncertain dementia.
It is a matter of great concern to learn that most people are unaware of this disease. The best way to prevent this is to maintain your weight especially during the middle years and learn new things everyday to exercise your brain. The state of our health lies mostly in our hands; it is our duty to take as much care as possible to make the body disease free till we can.
