Dementia can be prevented with finger exercises or a little thoughtfulness in your daily life. (Image source: Adobe Stock)
dementiaThe most serious problem is care. The degree of need for care is mainly divided into five stages according to the degree of independence of the patient’s daily life.
Stages 1-2 are mainly about protection. Although it will affect daily life to some extent, it is not too serious. However, if it is above stage 3, the burden of care will increase a lot in one go.
Not only do you need to take care of the patient’s diet, go to the toilet, and wander around day and night (walking around and walking around unconsciously), but also make people have to keep an eye on them all the time. In addition, there are many cases of making strange noises or being violent towards caregivers.
At this point, the caregiver’s burden and fatigue will reach its peak, and home care will become very difficult.
When home care reaches a critical point, the situation of sending dementia patients to nursing centers has reached a very late stage.
The cost of special nursing centers for the elderly is relatively low, so there are many people waiting in line to enter. Even if you enter a nursing facility for the elderly or a collective rehabilitation home, or a nursing center for the elderly that requires a fee, in terms of cost and the number of people admitted, It is also a big problem.
Although day service or short-term care can reduce the burden to a certain extent, it also has limitations.
On the other hand, as the number of dementia patients increases, various problems will arise from a social perspective. For example, in recent years, accidents caused by dangerous driving of the elderly have been regarded as a major problem, such as stepping on the wrong brake and accelerator, misreading traffic lights and signs, driving in the wrong direction on the highway…
Dementia is a disease that is especially easy to give people a bad impression, perhaps because they are afraid that they will suffer from it in the future.
Whether it is yourself or your family members, as long as you suffer from dementia, you will be over. I can clearly say to those who are worried: Please don’t give up.
Dementia can be prevented by doing “OK Finger Gymnastics” or a little thought in daily life, and even if you suffer from dementia, it is very likely to be cured.
Can such a thing be done? Next, let me explain in detail why and how.
Understand the structure of the brain to transmit information
To understand dementia as a disease, we must first understand the structure of brain activity.
How does our brain transmit information? First, let’s briefly explain. Here are some proper nouns that you don’t hear very often, so it might get a little boring. And compared to these, maybe everyone would like to know the content of “OK refers to gymnastics” earlier.
However, what I am going to explain next will allow you to better understand that “dementia can be cured”, so I hope everyone must read it.
The most important job of the brain is to transmit information, and this job is performed by nerve cells (neurons).
Our human brain is made up of about 14 billion cells. Among them, 4%, about 400-500 million, are nerve cells, and most of the rest are glial cells. These cells are “support troops” responsible for supplying nutrients to nerve cells.
The brain is connected by these nerve cells one by one to form a complex information network.
Around each nerve cell, there are numerous branched dendrites protruding like tree buds. One of the particularly long branches is the axon, which is connected to other nerve cells in front of and behind it. This part is called a synapse.
The various external information (stimuli) that we see through our eyes, hear through our ears, and smell through our noses will pass through axons and synapses to other cells. In addition, the instructions issued by the brain are also transmitted to the extremities through the same pathway.
Responsible for the task of transmitting information is the energy source (ATP) and neurotransmitters that assist in perceiving information. Both are produced by the action of nerve cells.
If you use the analogy of a car, ATP is the engine. Neurotransmitters can be thought of as the oil that keeps the engine running smoothly.
Both ATP and neurotransmitters are produced by mitochondria, a cell organ in nerve cells. The glucose ingested by the human body (like the “gasoline” in a car) will be transported here by the blood, and then through the TCA cycle (citric acid cycle) to produce ATP and neurotransmitters.
Here, it is particularly important that in the operation of the TCA cycle, in addition to glucose, oxygen (like the “electricity” of a car) is absolutely indispensable.
In other words, if the two elements of glucose and oxygen are not enough, the operation of the brain will deteriorate rapidly.
Another important point is that among the neurotransmitters, some substances such as acetylcholine or dopamine are produced in a small amount in the body and must be supplemented through the outside world.
As mentioned above, the structure of the neural network system for processing information is very sophisticated and delicate.
Therefore, once nerve cells are injured or damaged, even if only some of them are abnormal, they cannot transmit information smoothly or are blocked.
Especially the hippocampus and amygdala, which are closely related to dementia. These two parts, deep in the sides of the brain, contain clusters of nerve cells responsible for memory.
Dementia is a disease caused by damage to nerve cells. First of all, I hope everyone knows this.
“Dementia” is not the name of a disease, but a general term for symptoms caused by damage to brain nerve cells due to various reasons. (Image source: Adobe Stock)
Causes of Nerve Cell Decline
Next, let’s talk about the causes of nerve cell damage.
Dementia is divided into several categories according to different causes of symptoms, and the treatment methods are also different according to the symptoms of different characteristics.
The definition of dementia is “the state of inability to take care of daily life and social life due to the chronic decline and disappearance of various mental functions of normal development”.
The main symptom that will appear at the beginning is memory loss. As the cognitive function deteriorates, the following symptoms will also appear.
‧Aphasia: The language function of speaking and listening is reduced.
‧Apraxia: Although the brain understands, it cannot act as it wants.
‧Agnosia: Inability to properly grasp the information obtained through the five senses, such as vision and hearing.
‧Executive dysfunction: poor ability to plan things, establish order and carry out.
Dementia can be divided into two categories, namely “degenerative” and “vascular”.
The former causes extensive death of nerve cells due to degeneration, and is a disease in which the brain shrinks. The latter is a disease in which the blood flow in the brain deteriorates, leading to the death of some nerve cells.
Whether it is degenerative or vascular, it is also the paralysis of nerve cells, which is the direct cause of dementia. However, the reasons and processes that lead to this are different.
Degenerative dementias include, for example, “Alzheimer’s disease”, “Lewy body dementia”, and “Pick’s disease”.
Vascular dementia, on the other hand, includes dementia caused by cerebral infarction (cerebrovascular blockage), cerebral hemorrhage, sequelae of head trauma, chronic subdural hematoma, brain tumor, Primary normobaric hydrocephalus leading to blood flow disorders, etc.
Among the proportion of patients with various causes, vascular causes accounted for the most, accounting for about 40%, followed by degenerative causes at about 30%, and primary normobaric hydrocephalus and others belonged to “others”.
A trend in recent years has been characterized by a marked increase in degenerative patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
By the way, “Dementia” is not the name of the disease, but the name of the symptom to be precise. As mentioned above, the general term for the symptoms that appear due to damage to brain nerve cells due to various reasons is dementia syndrome.
This article is excerpted from Shimao Publishing House’s “Moving Your Hands and Fingers, Living Your Brain Without Losing Your Mind: Authoritative Brain Physicians Teach You Exercises to Improve Brain Blood Flow and Restore Neurological Function!” “, Author: Dr. Takeuchi Totaro.
Source: Shimao Press
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