Knowing Dementia

 Inna Novikova

Unfortunately, many of us are faced with the fact that elderly relatives have health problems - not only physical, but also mental: whims and claims appear. How to understand, is it just the character deteriorates with age, or is it already dementia? Any form of dementia is dementia. These are organic changes in the brain due to the fact that by old age the passage of blood vessels is impaired. Atherosclerosis of vessels is accelerated by alcohol, diabetes, endocrine diseases ten to fifteen years. 

High sugar bombards blood vessels, alcohol is brain intoxication, weakening the connections between neurons. By the age of 85, 80 per cent of older people have signs of dementia. As a rule, it starts with whims. The vessels are clogged, and the blood flow to the brain does not pass in full. There is an organic death of brain cells, organically similar to gangrene, that is, it captures an increasing volume. The most delicate mirror neurons are the first to suffer - this is what makes us human. Mirror neurons are responsible for mirroring emotions: we feel sorry for a person, because we feel his pain as our own.

When this function breaks down, empathy goes away. Mothers become uninterested in what happens to their children. This is the first call. Second. Since the death of brain cells is the absence of their own energy potential, such patients begin to compensate for the lack of their own energy at the expense of loved ones, and this is done consciously, they look at what relatives react to, and press these buttons. If a loved one began to mock you, and obviously hurting you, then this is it.

The next stage: the cells die, and the connections between neurons are broken. And the connections between neurons are short-term memory, logic, with more severe lesions - disorientation in time and space. First for short periods, then for longer periods, then completely. The last stage is vegetative, like a vegetable. At the first stage, even before short-term memory impairment, it is easy to check whether there is dementia or not. I ask relatives: "How do you feel after talking with a loved one?" 

A child at 20, 30 or 60 years old, having nourishment from his parents, goes through life easily and well. Dementia patients are well attached to themselves, mimicking children: "I'm so unhappy, so small." They shake the feeling of guilt: "I raised you all my life, and you sent me to a nursing home." They try to evoke a feeling of pity, constantly feign illness: "Oh, it hurts here, it hurts here." The theme "everything hurts" is just about dementia patients. I say: "Show me where it hurts." They show, and if you ask again in a few minutes, it will be some other place. Their main goal is to attract attention.

It is necessary to take into account the lack of logic in actions, characteristic of children. I always recommend to relatives: agree, do not argue, you will not prove anything. We communicate with you by logical arguments, and there communication is emotional. When relatives say that, probably, he (s) will behave like this, I say: "No, you will not calculate, you judge by yourself how I would feel in this situation." But all your brain cells are intact, mirror neurons are working, and you look at a person and think: "Probably, a person would be as bad as me." Or vice versa. The function of mirror neurons is serious, it enables a person to learn and open up emotionally.

- Pravda.ru