Hidden Figures: Dementia

 Dementia:

Not a specific disease, dementia, is a group of conditions characterized by the impairment of at least two brain functions, such as memory loss and judgment. Symptoms include forgetfulness, limited social skills, and thinking abilities so impaired that it interferes with daily functioning. Medications and therapies may help manage symptoms. Some causes are reversible. A group of thinking and social symptoms that interferes with daily functioning. Affecting more than 3 million lives in America alone, dementia is very common. It can be chronic, lasting for years or be a lifelong condition. Unfortunately, it can not be cured, but treatments can help.

Alzheimer's Disease:

This is the most common form of dementia that is seen in patients. It is considered a slow progressive brain disease that begins before symptoms even emerge. Roughly about 60 to 80 percent develop Alzheimer's Disease. Early symptoms of individuals struggling with Alzheimer's Disease include having trouble remembering recent conversations, names, or events as well as apathy and depression. As the disease progresses with time, so do the symptoms. Communication is impaired, there is poor judgement, disorientation, confusion, behavior changes, and difficulty speaking, walking, and swallowing. The brain is altered from the deposits of protein fragment Beta-Amyloid Plaques, twisted strands of tau proteins (tangles), nerve cell damage, and cell death in the brain. 

Vascular dementia:

Previously known as multi-infarct or post-stroke dementia, vascular dementia is less common as a sole cause of dementia than Alzheimer’s, accounting for about 10 percent of dementia cases. Individuals have impaired judgement or inability to make conscious decisions. They are unable to plan or organize is usually the first symptoms of Vascular Dementia compared to that of Alzheimer's where the individual has memory loss as their initial symptoms. The reason why people suffering with VD have trouble making decisions is because of the blockage of blood vessels or brain damage that causes strokes or bleeding in the brain. The location, number and size of the brain injury determines how the individual's thinking and physical functioning are affected.

Brain imaging can often detect blood vessel problems implicated in vascular dementia. In the past, evidence for vascular dementia was used to exclude a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (and vice versa). That practice is no longer considered consistent with pathologic evidence, which shows that the brain changes of several types of dementia can be present simultaneously. When any two or more types of dementia are present at the same time, the individual is considered to have "mixed dementia" (see entry below).

Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB):

People with dementia with Lewy bodies often have memory loss and thinking problems common in Alzheimer's, but are more likely than people with Alzheimer's to have initial or early symptoms such as sleep disturbances, well-formed visual hallucinations, and slowness, gait imbalance or other parkinsonian movement features. Lewy bodies are abnormal aggregations (or clumps) of the protein alpha-synuclein. When they develop in a part of the brain called the cortex, dementia can result. Alpha-synuclein also aggregates in the brains of people with Parkinson's disease, but the aggregates may appear in a pattern that is different from dementia with Lewy bodies. The brain changes of dementia with Lewy bodies alone can cause dementia, or they can be present at the same time as the brain changes of Alzheimer's disease and/or vascular dementia, with each abnormality contributing to the development of dementia. When this happens, the individual is said to have "mixed dementia."

Mixed Dementia:

In mixed dementia abnormalities linked to more than one cause of dementia occur simultaneously in the brain. Recent studies suggest that mixed dementia is more common than previously thought. Characterized by the hallmark abnormalities of more than one cause of dementia —most commonly, Alzheimer's and vascular dementia, but also other types, such as dementia with Lewy bodies. As Parkinson's disease progresses, it often results in a progressive dementia similar to dementia with Lewy bodies or Alzheimer's. Problems with movement are common symptoms of the disease. If dementia develops, symptoms are often similar to dementia with Lewy bodies. Alpha-synuclein clumps are likely to begin in an area deep in the brain called the substantia nigra. These clumps are thought to cause degeneration of the nerve cells that produce dopamine.

 Frontotemporal Dementia : 

Includes dementias such as behavioral variant FTD (bvFTD), primary progressive aphasia, Pick's disease, corticobasal degeneration and progressive supranuclear palsy. Typical symptoms include changes in personality and behavior and difficulty with language. Nerve cells in the front and side regions of the brain are especially affected. No distinguishing microscopic abnormality is linked to all cases. People with FTD generally develop symptoms at a younger age (at about age 60) and survive for fewer years than those with Alzheimer's.

 CJD or Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease:

CJD is the most common human form of a group of rare, fatal brain disorders affecting people and certain other mammals. Variant CJD (“mad cow disease”) occurs in cattle, and has been transmitted to people under certain circumstances. Rapidly fatal disorder that impairs memory and coordination and causes behavior changes. Results from misfolded prion protein that causes a "domino effect" in which prion protein throughout the brain misfolds and thus malfunctions.

 

Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus:

Symptoms include difficulty walking, memory loss and inability to control urination. Caused by the buildup of fluid in the brain. Can sometimes be corrected with surgical installation of a shunt in the brain to drain excess fluid.

 Huntington’s disease:

This progressive brain disorder caused by a single defective gene on chromosome 4. Include abnormal involuntary movements, a severe decline in thinking and reasoning skills, and irritability, depression and other mood changes. The gene defect causes abnormalities in a brain protein that, over time, lead to worsening symptoms.

Wernicke- Korsakoff syndrome:

Chronic memory disorder that is caused by severe deficiency of thiamine (vitamin B-1). The most common cause is alcohol misuse. Memory problems may be strikingly severe while other thinking and social skills seem relatively unaffected. Thiamine helps brain cells produce energy from sugar. When thiamine levels fall too low, brain cells cannot generate enough energy to function properly.

Research:

Researchers of University of Leicester conducted a study where they observed and recorded the ways in which lower levels of toxic by-products were produced by the nervous system of fruit flies. These fruit flies were previously engineered to have beta amyloid plaque build ups which causes neurodegeneration. Neurodegeneration negatively affects crawling and climbing abilities of these flies and shortened their lifespans. The collected data from the study showed that by lowering the levels of toxic metabolites (aka: the by-products of biological processes in the nervous system of the flies) can have a neuroprotective effect. (B)

Dr Doug Brown, Director of Research and Development at Alzheimer’s Society, said:

'Studies in fruit flies can help us to better understand some of the underlying biological changes that happen in Alzheimer’s disease. However, they only represent a very simplistic version of the condition – behavioural changes seen in fruit flies, such as slow crawling and climbing, are very different from the symptoms people with Alzheimer’s disease experience.(B)

Each year, roughly about 200,000 individuals will be diagnosed with dementia and the last time there was a new treatment presented to the public for patients with Alzheimer's disease was in 2002. So it is important that more research is being conducted so that people being diagnosed for dementia or those living with dementia can live more functioning and manageable lives. (B)

Alzheimer's Society is now uniting the Medical Research Council with the Alzheimer's UK Research team to tackle dementia thanks to a 50 million euro investment. The Prime Minister hopes to bring together scientists and experts from across the globe to transform the landscape of dementia research. The aim is to establish the very first Dementia Research Institute in the UK and to secure UK's reputation as the world leader in research and development against dementia. He call's it his 'Challenge on Dementia 2020'. Their government even invested £150 million to success of the program. (C)

The focus of this program will be to have a network of regional centers where hundreds of researchers will be able to interact with each other so that innovative scientific discoveries can be made more frequently that will help people world wide. The discovery of the mechanisms of the development and progression of dementia will improve health care strategies and improve care while reducing the risk of dementia for future generations. (C)

Links:
(A)http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/29/secret-life-dementia-sufferer-carer-iron-fridge
(B)https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/news_article.php?newsID=2595
(C)https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/news_article.php?newsID=2598

*Please note! These are not my images! If any are yours please let me know so that I can give you credit for them~ Also these images have no relation whatsoever between the people in these images and the Diseases I am discussing about. Thanks so much~ Enjoy!