Dementia Treatments San Bernardino CA

You may always have believed that dementia was an internal process, triggered by unknown changes in the brain and perhaps genetically determined. But external factors can contribute as well. For instance, did you know that people who care for spouses with dementia are at significantly higher risk of developing dementia themselves?

This recent discovery by a team of scientists at Utah State University in Logan has the medical community taking a closer look at the toll caring for someone with dementia takes on a person. It appears that toll can be great. The team looked at data from a local study of 1,221 married couples who were at least 65 years old. The study followed the couples for up to 12 years. The findings? During the study, the spouses of people who developed dementia had a six-fold greater risk of developing dementia themselves. And husbands were more at risk of developing dementia if their wives had it than wives were if their husbands had it.

The researchers believe that people who care for a spouse with dementia day in and day out experience severe stress that may somehow trigger dementia in themselves. One explanation is that ongoing stress might damage the hippocampus, the part of the brain that controls memory. Or that stress somehow lowers cognitive function in caregivers, a finding of several other studies.

Regardless of how or why caring for a spouse with dementia may cause the disease to appear in the caregiver, it's imperative that caregivers take care of themselves for both their physical and mental health. If you're caring for a spouse with dementia, you can:

• See your doctor. Don't neglect your own well-being while caring for your spouse. If you aren't sleeping or eating well or have other physical complaints, get care.

• Accept help. Don't feel that you have to do this all by yourself. If you have family or friends nearby who can relieve you for an hour or two each day, it can make a tremendous difference in your outlook. F...

Dementia is a significant and growing problem in many countries, not just in America. A new report prepared by researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London indicates that worldwide cases of the disease will almost double every twenty years, from 35 million in 2010 to 65.7 million in 2030 and more than 115 million in 2050. Among all chronic diseases looked at, dementia is responsible for the largest share of people classified as disabled and requiring care.

Why the seeming surge in cases of dementia? Much of it is because for years, dementia in certain locales was never identified as such. The institute's report is based on new data gathered from recent studies in low- and middle-income countries throughout Western Europe, Latin America, and South Asia. It turns out that the percentages of older people afflicted with dementia is higher than previously estimated even just a few years ago. In Western Europe, 7.3 percent of older adults have dementia versus the 5.9 believed to have it; in Latin America 8.5 percent of the elderly are affected versus 7.3 percent; and South Asia's older population is affected at the rate of 5.7 percent, not 3.4 percent. In North America the percentage of older adults who have it is exactly what researchers previously estimated, and in East Asia the numbers are actually lower (4.98 percent who have it versus the 6.46 percent previously thought to have it). Right now 57.7 percent of all people with dementia are from low- and middle-income countries, a figure that will increase to more than 70 percent in the next 40 years as diagnosis gets more sophisticated and lifespan in these countries continues to rise.

Dementia costs societies around the planet billions of dollars a year, and experts widely acknowledge that caring for someone with dementia can be a full-time job that takes its toll on a caregiver's work, family and friends. While you may not be able to erase the global burden of this disease, you can make ch...