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Understand the Process and Experience of Dementia

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Understand the Process and Experience of Dementia
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1.1Dementia is caused by damage to brain cells and in many ways, from alcoholism, brain injury, drug abuse, side effects to medications, depression, age, thyroid function abnormalities, and vitamin B12 deficiency. Alzheimer’s Dementia is caused by a build-up of proteins which the body no longer breaks down and this affects the transmission of signals.

1.2Memory loss can be defines in different ways. Memory loss can be the inability to retrieve information from the long-term memory (usually happening when the person is distracted or not fully concentrating when the memory is formed), when the new memories replace the old memories stored in brain (experienced by everyone), and the fading away of memories for example numbers and names if the person hasn’t used them in a while. The hippocampus stores long-term and shrinks during the ageing process, which creates a form of memory loss.

1.3The abilities and limitations affect the way information is processed in many ways. The chemical Dopamine controls the flow of information from other areas of the brain, particularly memory and attention and an imbalance will cause information to not flow correctly. Serotonin has an effect on mood, anxiety and depression, and so it is expected that an individual with dementia will have difficulty in those three areas, for example erratic mood swings and the inability to maintain a constant mood, well-being or self-esteem. Acetylcholine control the activity of the brain that connect with attention, learning and memory – Alzheimer’s sufferers experience major difficulty with these areas due to having a low level of ACh in their brain. Glutamate makes the links between neurons that are the centre of learning and long-term memory, without it or a decreased amount of it, the neurons are unable to transmit information properly. Also in addition, people with dementia with neuron damage on the right side of the brain experience great difficulty putting information together

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