Older people love broken thoughts and it is a common phenomenon to repeat something over and over, however, doctors recommend listening carefully to the content of broken thoughts, which can lead to an early diagnosis of depression or dementia in the elderly. The doctor said that melancholy broken thoughts will constantly complain about unpleasant experiences in life, and the content is narrative and systematic; in addition to memory loss, demented broken thoughts will also appear in language, spatial sense, degradation of calculation skills or personality changes, etc. A preliminary judgment can be expressed from the content.
Mild dementia is difficult to detect
Chen Youda, a family doctor, said that most elderly people with mild dementia have a normal appearance, a clear state of consciousness, and are able to take care of themselves in daily life. Although cognitive impairment does sometimes occur, it is not severe enough to affect their lives. This also makes it difficult for people around to detect abnormalities and ignore the warning signs of dementia. In fact, in addition to memory loss, dementia can also experience linguistic, spatial, computer or personality changes.
Dementia and depression differ in content
Chen Youda pointed out that dementia-type broken thoughts usually have the following characteristics:Constantly repeating the same phrase, lack of sense of disease, contained out of reality. For example: did I eat? After a while she asked me if I had eaten? Or XXX stole 60,000 yuan from my house, but never actually got 60,000 yuan.
As for the broken thoughts of senile depression, the characteristics are:Constantly complaining about unpleasant experiences in life, storytelling and systemic content. For example, XXX is very mean to me, often scolds me and beats me, or XXX hasn’t come home in a long time, XXX has forgotten me now that he’s grown up.
Depression increases the risk of dementia, loneliness accelerates degeneration
Chen Youda recalled that patients who have suffered from depression have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in the future, so they must maintain a happy mood and regulate their stress; Patients with mild dementia are hyperactive and can delay brain degeneration, so seniors are encouraged to participate in social activities. We encourage family members to undergo a full evaluation if they experience memory loss, personality changes, or intellectual decline and we do not ignore them.
◎ Image source / Provided by Dazhi Image / shutterstock
◎ Source /Doctor Chen Youda
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