Dementia Flashcards
(60 cards)
Dementia
an acquired neurological syndrome associated with persistent or progressive deterioration in intellectual functions.
It occurs later in life and its incidence increases with age
Deficits of Dementia
Impaired short-term memory
Impaired long-term memory
Impairment in at least one of these:
Abstract thinking, personality, judgment, constructional abilities, language, praxis, visual recognition
Early signs of dementia include the following:
memory failure, disorientation, lapses in judgment, difficulty performing ADLs, difficulty performing mentally challenging tasks, misplacing things, apathy and loss of initiative, changes in mood. The severity and persistence that marks dementia
Dementia is progressive, occurs later in life and its incidence increases with age
true
Subcortical Dementias impairments of ___ occur later than in cortical dementias
memory, IQ, and language
What is the first impairment to appear in subcortical dementias?
motor problems
Subcortical dementias can occur in
Parkinsons
Huntingtons
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy
HIV encephalopathy
Dementia and Parkinson’s
if dementia occurs, its usually mild to moderate
its treated with meds (L-dopa) and deep brain stimulation
Dementia and Huntington’s
Patients are usually put in institutions at the end of life and in the end stages, the patient is often mute and profoundly demented
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy and Dementia
It is rare and in its final stages, patient is very unintelligible and may become mute
HIV encephalopathy and Dementia
No cure for AIDS or AIDS dementia complex. as dementia worsens, spontaneous speech decreases to single words or short phrases
Vascular Dementia
caused by multiple infarcts at different locations of the brain, its the second most common type of dementia in the US
Lewy Body dementia
caused by proliferation of Lewy bodies (abnormal protein deposits in neurons)
Frontotemporal dementia
caused by pathological changes in the frontal and temporal lobes
Cortical Dementias
Alzheimer’s Disease
Pick’s Diease
Alzheimer’s Disease is characterized by these changes in neurons
- neurofibrillary tangles: threadlike structures in cell bodies, dendrites and axons
- neuritic plaques: small areas of tissue degeneration
- granulovacuolar degeneration: inside neurons of hippocampus. fluid filled spaces called vacuoles enlarge the cells body and cause it to malfunction
- decrease in ACH level
What causes Alzheimer’s?
cause is unknown but may be related to genetic abnormality
Medical management for Alzheimer’s?
- no real effective medical tx to slow down the disease or to cure it
- but meds may help with cognition and reduce aggression and depression
- nutrition needs to be monitered
1st stages/Early stages
Alzheimer’s in middle stages:
- lapses of memory, problems with judgement and reasoning, disorientation, mood changes
- language requirements are problematic, word finding, difficulty understanding complex material
- talk long, become irrelevant, tangential
- word finding problems worsen
- patients begin to shorten their utterances and use sentences that aren’t grammatically correct
- may get lost in simple conversations
Alzheimer’s in late stages
- severely impaired communication
- nonfunctional reading & writing abilities
- comprehension of spoken material limited to simple familiar phrases
- pts speech primarily consists of sentence fragments and words which may not make sense
- syntax breaks down
- neologistic utterance may occur
- some become mute, other echolalic
- death because of pneumonia
Pick’s Disease
Occurs between 40-60 years
no effective cure
Pick’s Disease
Characterized by 2 neuronal abnormalities
pick cells- enlarged neurons
pick bodies- globe like formations in the neuron
no effective cure- meds for symptoms
Pick’s in later stages
patient may become mute with motor rigidity
Difference between Alzheimer’s and Pick’s
memory and orientation last longer in Pick’s but Pick’s has more early language problems. Comprehension is problem in later stages as with Alz.
