Recently, in the forgetful clinic of our department, I met several younger brothers and younger sisters. They said that their memory has declined and they suspected dementia. When I want to go out, I already have the key, and I still need the key; I forgot to lock the door when I went downstairs; I saw a familiar actor in front of the TV and couldn’t name it. After watching the movie, it didn’t take long before the content was blurred; When it comes to the content of the TV series, Zhang Guan and Li Dai… are young, in their 30s, forgetful and inattentive, are they going to be demented?
In fact, after detailed inquiry, they all have some common characteristics: staying up late, lack of sleep or insomnia, emotional stress or depression, smoking and alcoholism. In fact, sleep has a great impact on memory. Long-term deprivation of sleep and brain neurons cannot get enough rest, and memory will inevitably decrease. Therefore, it is not surprising that young people are experiencing forgetfulness, and forgetfulness is indeed becoming younger.
After being screened by the professional dementia scale, the above-mentioned patients have only ordinary memory loss, which does not meet the diagnosis of dementia. They only need to change their bad lifestyle, and the slowly stolen memory will naturally recover without panic.
So what exactly is dementia? Dementia has strict diagnostic criteria, which must be acquired (not congenital mental retardation), intellectual impairment is continuous (not a transient transient state of confusion, at least more than 4 months), conscious, and at the same time Dementia can only be considered if there are at least three declines in language, memory, visual space skills, emotion or personality, and cognition (generalization, calculation, judgment, etc.) that affect life. Therefore, simply transient amnesia is not necessarily dementia, but it needs to be paid attention to and checked by a professional doctor.
There are also some high-risk groups that need to be investigated, including 6 categories: (1) Those who have experienced such diseases in the family’s parents, grandparents, mothers, etc., suggesting a higher risk of Alzheimer’s; apolipoprotein E genotype is positive; (2) People who smoke and drink for a long time, and those with the three high levels of obesity have greater cerebrovascular damage and are prone to the disease; alcoholic encephalopathy can also cause dementia; (3) Those with lower cultural and educational levels have less contact with society ( Elderly people living alone, socially isolated), middle-aged people with hearing loss or loss are also susceptible to the disease; (4) The risk factor of women is higher than that of men; (5) The history of multiple head injuries, or exposure to toxic substances or encephalitis , Gas poisoning, etc.; (6) Depression in the elderly.
