Jakarta (ANTARA) – A neurologist at Siloam Hospital Yogyakarta, Lothar Matheus MV Silalahi, said early diagnosis is important to prevent dementia or senility.
“Early diagnosis is important to prevent dementia, because medical treatment or modern medical treatment cannot guarantee recovery for people with dementia,” Lothar said in his statement in Jakarta on Friday.
However, he continued, when it is already at a certain stage, the management of dementia patients is optimized so that they do not get worse or reach the next level of severity.
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“The aim of sufferers can adapt to their conditions with the highest quality of life,” he added.
He explained that a neurological, mental exam and what is known as a sublime functional test will initiate a diagnostic action and continue with brain scans, CT scans, MRI or PET scans and other supportive measures. Some special therapy and it is important to have the support of family and environment.
“Like a house, dementia and one of the rooms in it is Alzheimer’s. You can interpret Alzheimer’s as one of the most common types of dementia,” he said.
Continuous consultation is the right step to monitor developments with ideal treatment including adopting a healthy lifestyle, regular exercise, adequate nutritional intake while training your brain regularly. It’s also important to manage comorbidities, such as diabetes, cholesterol, high blood pressure, which are things you can do to prevent dementia disorders.
Dementia, he continued, can occur when the brain is degraded due to diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, stroke and head trauma.
“In detail, dementia is a condition of reduced brain function, such as loss of memory and the ability to judge or even memory, thought patterns and will interfere with the independence of the sufferer’s activities,” he said.
Among the many types of dementia, data show that Alzheimer’s is often found, which will be associated with genetic and protein changes in the brain. There are also other types such as vascular dementia which is caused by disturbances in the blood vessels of the brain.
Risk factors include age, family genetics, unhealthy eating patterns, lack of exercise, smoking and alcoholism. Risk factors are also triggered by some conditions such as depression, Down syndrome, sleep apneahypertension, obesity and diabetes.
The main symptoms of people with dementia are memory loss and changes in thought patterns that are evident in behavior and language and tend to get worse over time.
