Adults Managing Mental Health

Question: Explain the scope and nature of dementia in adults, and consider the responses that might be taken to such conditions? Answer: Dementia in adults: Introduction: Adults often suffer from many metal disorders due to excess of workload, stress, depression, lack of family attention etc. Dementia is a mental disorder seen almost in adults, is a type of disease results in loss of memory and power of thinking that increase gradually. The patient affected by dementia could not be able to perform the daily woks (Colyer, 2011). In this topic we will discuss about the definition, types, causes and treatments of dementia in adults. Definition: Dementia is the disability of an affected persons loss of memory, thinking power eventually and failure to perform his daily functions and communicating. Types of dementia: There are many types of dementia seen in adults and the most common type is Alzheimers disease. Others are Lewy body dementia, vascular dementia, Parkinsons disease, fronto temporal dementia, syphilis and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease etc. Alzheimers disease related to shortest memory loss and word finding problems. Vascular dementia is cause due to injury to blood vessels and disease. Lewy bodies dementia is shows the primary symptoms of visual hallucinations and Parkinsons disease. Parkinsons disease is disorders in nervous system which affects the movement of the patient. Frontotemporal dementia has the symptoms of drastic changes in personality and language difficulties. Symptoms of dementia: Some common symptoms for dementia are recent loss of memory, difficulty in performing daily tasks, communicating problems, confusion, lack of taking any decisions, problem with conceptual thinking, mood swings, loss of interest in performing any work etc. Causes of dementia: Dementia mainly caused due to the death of brain cell in most of the cases. Head injury, brain stroke, tumor in brain can also be the cause for dementia. The cause of dementia also found associated with HIV. Depression, deficiency of vitamin, medications are some of the causes of dementia. There some recent developments in the cause of dementia those are vitamin D deficiency, serious brain injury, and lack of proper sleep (MacGill, 2015). Diagnosis of dementia: The first step for diagnosis concern with memory power and cognitive health. This can be done by asking simple questions. Basic tests associated with drawing and word could help to diagnose dementia. Mental tests, GPCOG test, MMSE (Mini Mental State Examination) are some of the tests to diagnose dementia. Recently developed tests are four biomarkers of dementia and physical abilities of the adults (Mahoney, 2011). Treatments for dementia in adults: Since dementia is mainly cause due to death of the brain cell there is no such effective treatment for dementia. I f symptoms shoe that dementia due to reversible cause and non degenerative cause; this can be prevent ed. Alzheimers disease symptoms can be reduced by medications. Some medicines for this are Donepezil, Alantamine, Rivastigmine and Tacrine etc. Brain train also helps decreasing the symptoms of Alzheimers disease (Fischer et al., 2011). Care from family members and friends is very much need in prevention of dementia in adults. There are some current developments in controlling dementia, they are drugs that prevent the brain cell death, taking nuts and oil with Mediterranean diet can prevent memory loss. Some risk factors for dementia are tobacco smoking drinking of alcohol, high cholesterol level, high blood glucose level etc. Conclusion: Dementia is a mental disease cause mainly due to the death of brain cells. It can also cause due to prolonged medication, HIV infection, depression etc. Since it is due to the death of brain cells there is no proper treatments but some medicines are available to prevent this. Adult having high cholesterol high blood sugar, taking alcohol and smoking are at high risk of getting this disease. There are some recent developments in treatment of this disease and are still more researches in this regard are going on. References list: Colyer, H. (2011). Dementia care a positive future: a postscript.Quality Ageing Older Adults, 12(2). Fischer, C., Schweizer, T., Joy, J., Jiang, D., Ringer, L. and Herrmann, N. (2011). Determining the Impact of Dementia on Antidepressant Treatment Response in Older Adults.Journal of Neuropsychiatry, 23(3), pp.358-361. MacGill, M. (2015).Dementia: Causes, Symptoms and Treatments. [online] Medical News Today. Available at: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/142214.php?page=2#tests_and_diagnosis [Accessed 15 Jul. 2015]. MAHONEY, D. (2011). Adult ADHD Associated With Dementia Risk.Internal Medicine News, 44(4), pp.22-23.