Nowadaysalmost everyone complains of forgetfulness. The most common complaints are not being able to remember names, forgetting promises, not being able to find frequently used items such as car keys and glasses where they were last placed, and not being able to remember where you put an item.
However, most of this type of forgetfulness is caused by attention-related problems. Because memory can only work properly when attention is normal. If your attention is not on what you are doing but somewhere else while doing a task, speaking a word to someone, or leaving an object somewhere, the memory cannot truly record it, and in such a case, you cannot find this information in your memory that has not been recorded later.
Also, depression can occur. It disrupts the recording system of memory by decreasing people's interest, decreasing their energy and reducing their importance, thus forgetfulness, or rather the inability to remember due to the lack of appropriate recording, may occur.
Still, especially in elderly people, attention-related memory impairment, recording problems caused by depression and/or forgetfulness may occur. or dementia may not be easily distinguishable. In fact, brain functions may be impaired and dementia may occur due to a completely different disease such as electrolyte imbalance (such as low or high sodium or potency), chronic infection of the urinary tract, malfunction of the thyroid gland, or very low vitamin B12. For these reasons, is the current complaint of forgetfulness a real dementia or a treatable disease, attention disorder or depression? It is necessary to make a good distinction. For this purpose, some laboratory examinations, imaging methods (MRI, tomography) and neuropsychological tests are used.
In cases where forgetfulness is a disease, there are different dementia diagnoses such as Alzheimer's type dementia, vascular dementia (dementia associated with cerebrovascular diseases) or fronto-temporal type dementia. The most common type of dementia is Alzheimer's Disease. The second most common is vascular dementia. Other types of dementia are less common, but they are very important to distinguish. Because the course of rarer types of dementia is different from the common Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia.
The treatment of dementia depends on the patient's needs. It is very important to use the approach and the patient's existing capacity. However, trying to increase the patient's capacity is definitely not recommended. This situation causes stress in both the patient and the caregiver and leads to deterioration in relationships.
In addition, since the diagnosis of dementia causes other problems such as irritability, depression, sleep disturbance, dreaming, and appetite changes, medications for these complaints are also used in the course of the disease.
To prevent patients from getting lost or Necessary precautions should be taken to prevent them from harming themselves or others at home (such as forgetting to cover the food and causing a fire). No patient diagnosed with dementia should be given an order to take his/her own medications. Considering that even normal people can forget, it is very common for the patient to forget that he has taken his medication and take it over and over again, or to not take it thinking that he has taken it, and both of these are dangerous for both the patient and the course of the disease. Since houses can be easily remembered, it is not recommended to change them if possible, but families responsible for caring for people with dementia should never be divided so that the person with dementia can continue to stay in their home. If possible, you can be cared for with a caregiver. It should not be forgotten that our patients' relatives are as valuable as our patients are, and the healthy one has priority.
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