Representatives of different generations often do not understand each other very well. The younger generation often cannot accept the outdated views of their grandparents, so they jokingly accuse them of dementia. Unfortunately, this disease is completely serious. According to statistics, about 1% of the total population of our planet suffers from this disorder. The disease is quite serious, so it is very important to diagnose it in time. If your loved one repeats the same thing several times, it’s worth taking a closer look at him. The women’s website “Beautiful and Successful” will tell you on this page what to do in such a situation.
What is perseveration
A condition in which a person repeats a thought, phrase or action several times in a row is called perseveration. It was described in ancient times by Aristotle, but the term itself appeared only in 1894 by the German physician A. Neisser. Modern doctors distinguish motor, sensory, emotional and intellectual perseverations. The most common are sensory perseverations, which are the repetition of visual, tactile or sound images in the imagination. They are typical for sensitive people who are very stressed or offended.
Speech perseveration is also a common disorder. However, it does not always indicate serious problems.
Obsessions in illness of people who repeat the same action several times
Patients with OCD are constantly haunted by intrusive, unpleasant thoughts or obsessions that make the person irritable. Absolutely any event can cause these thoughts:
- Stranger's cough
- Man standing close
- Closed space
- Insects
- Touching a shared object
But most often, OCD begin in a public place with a large crowd of people, since there are many provoking factors there. The patient can focus his attention on any of them.
Causes of this disorder
The main factor of perseveration is the inability to switch from one action to another. It may be associated with changes in brain activity. Severe mental disturbances indicate problems with the functioning of the nervous system, for example, organic brain damage. There are perseverations of physiological, psychopathological or neurological etiology.
- Physiological perseveration can appear in any person at certain periods of life. It is usually associated with inertia of nervous processes or overwork. Perseveration in children is also physiological. The need to repeat the same phrases or actions in this case should not cause anxiety.
- Neurological perseveration is one of the most common pathologies, which is caused by damage to the anterior parts of the cerebral hemispheres. If areas of the premotor zones and underlying subcortical structures are affected, the person begins to experience elementary motor disorders. If the lower parts of the premotor cortex of the left hemisphere are damaged, speech disorders will appear. This pathology can be caused by various reasons, among which doctors note brain tumors, cerebral atherosclerosis, traumatic brain injuries, strokes and dementia.
- Psychopathological factors of perseveration include autism, mental retardation, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia.
Signs of onset of dementia
Even the most experienced doctor will not be able to immediately understand what caused a person to repeat the same action without an examination. To diagnose a person with dementia or another age-related disorder, they must be thoroughly evaluated. However, the first signs of age-related changes in a person are noticed not by the doctor, but by close people.
Signs of dementia
It is worth noting that forgetfulness and memory problems are not symptoms of senile dementia. This is how age-related sclerosis appears. You can suspect dementia in a person based on the following signs:
- Speech problems. With dementia, a person may experience disorders such as spontaneous speech and aphasia, which are manifested by errors in the construction of phrases, incorrect use of words, and confusion in speech.
- Difficulty watching television.
- Forgetfulness. With dementia, people forget the names of even the most common objects that they use every day.
- Difficulty reading or writing.
- Mood swings. With dementia, a person may become aggressive.
- Apathy. Age-related changes can make a once energetic person apathetic, depressed, and lethargic. He loses interest in his favorite activities and even in close people.
- Problems with orientation in space. It is because of age-related changes that older people often get lost.
- Repetition of actions, phrases, gestures. Dementia is one of those disorders in which a person repeats actions several times. This is due to an imbalance in neurotransmitter systems.
As the website sympaty.net found out, factors in the development of dementia can be age-related changes in the brain, Alzheimer's disease, HIV infection, Pick, Creutzfeldt-Jakob, and Parkinson's diseases.
Depending on the intensity of symptoms, dementia can have varying degrees of severity.
There are preclinical, mild, moderate and severe degrees of the disease. The neglected form is dangerous. It not only disrupts brain function, but also negatively affects a person’s overall well-being. It is difficult for him to communicate with people, problems arise with taking medications, personal hygiene, and nutrition, which affects the patient’s condition. He begins to lose weight and loses his social image.
Classification of dementia
Severe dementia leads to exhaustion and apathy of a person. He practically stops getting out of bed, as a result of which he may develop bedsores, develop pneumonia or cachexia. It is not uncommon for people with dementia to die in an accident due to their injuries.
A clear desire to imitate
Often on our path in life we meet people who have achieved a lot. Now we are not talking about world-class stars and favorite actors. The people with whom we personally communicate have the strongest influence on us, even if not so often. We may be timid when meeting them or, on the contrary, produce incoherent sentences. It does not matter.
What is important for us is that such people seem to radiate powerful energy that is impossible to resist. It seems to us that they were able to recognize the formula for success and brilliantly put it into practice. For example, you admire your boss. He is a kind-hearted person, but with a strong character. He achieved everything through hard work and always looks great. And it’s completely natural that you can adopt his gestures, facial expressions and even his manner of dressing. You may even finally stop slouching and add confidence to your look. And that's not bad at all. This means that you strive to become better.
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Diagnosis of disorders
To determine the presence of serious brain disorders, doctors use several techniques to determine not only the degree of development of the disease, but also the etiology of the disorder. The first is the different scales. For example, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) can detect Alzheimer's disease in a patient, and the Khachinsky scale can detect vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disorders.
If infectious lesions of the brain are suspected, a technique such as differentiated diagnostics is used, including general and biochemical blood tests for electrolytes, creatine, glucose, tests for syphilis and HIV, and urine analysis.
An instrumental examination, including an electroencephalogram, computed and electrical resonance tomography, single-photon emission computed tomography, and positron emission tomography, will also help make the correct diagnosis.
A doctor can correctly diagnose a person who repeats the same thing only after a complete examination.
Only a complete clinical picture can tell which area of the brain was affected by the disease and what caused the disorder. Depending on why a person is sick, the doctor will prescribe different treatments.
Check your loved ones with a simple test
The course of the disease when a person repeats the same action several times
Unfortunately, complete cure is very difficult to achieve, but long-term stabilization of the condition is possible. It also depends on the severity of the disease.
- In mild forms of OCD, it can be treated at home and quite successfully; symptoms may return within 1-5 years .
- More severe forms of OCD , for example, phobias of sharp objects, infections, pollution, frequent rituals, on the contrary, may be resistant to treatment, and there may be a tendency to relapse.
If the dynamics of treatment are negative, this indicates a complication of the clinical picture of the disease as a whole.
Dementia therapy
If the cause of the thought disorder is Alzheimer's disease, the patient is prescribed a number of medications that slow down the progression of the disorder. These are drugs that improve blood circulation in the brain, cholinesterase inhibitors, and NMDA receptor antagonists. It is impossible to cure a patient suffering from such a disorder.
Today, medicine can only alleviate symptoms and prolong the patient’s life. Unfortunately, today people experience Alzheimer's disease at a fairly young age.
Vascular dementia is treated with vasodilators, antiplatelet and anticoagulants, and antihypertensive drugs.
Pick's disease is corrected with antipsychotics; Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is combated by resorting to symptomatic treatment with brefeldin A, calcium channel blockers, NMDA receptors, tilorone. For dementia caused by HIV infection, antiviral drugs are used.
Dementia statistics in the world
Prevention of age-related brain disorders
Currently, there are no methods that can 100% protect a person from developing Alzheimer's disease. However, there are measures that can be used to delay the onset of the disease in people predisposed to the disease. These include:
- Physical activity. An active lifestyle promotes good blood circulation, which provides the brain with sufficient oxygen. In addition, good blood circulation helps to increase the thickness of the cerebral cortex.
- Proper nutrition. A deficiency of certain microelements accelerates the wear and tear of the nervous system, so proper nutrition helps protect neurons from premature death. A good diet, rich in nutrients, micro- and macroelements, various acids, improves the functioning of blood vessels.
- Brainwork. Memorizing texts by heart, reading books, solving puzzles, crossword puzzles - all these exercises develop the functioning of the brain and slow down the aging process. It has been scientifically proven that people who engage in intellectual work all their lives suffer from dementia much less often than their peers who neglect reading.
- Hormone replacement therapy. One of the causes of dementia in women is hormone deficiency, so hormone replacement therapy is an opportunity to prevent various disorders, ranging from osteoporosis to Alzheimer's disease.
- Controlling cholesterol levels in the blood. This helps improve vascular function and prevent atherosclerosis, one of the common causes of thinking disorders in older people.
How to help a sick person
If the reason that a person repeats phrases or actions several times is due to dementia, and your close relative is diagnosed with this, you need to be prepared for the fact that he will have to be constantly monitored and cared for. There is no point in expecting the patient to get better: every day the elderly relative will feel worse and worse. Along with medications, proper care will help slow down the progression of the disease:
- help the patient eat and perform hygiene procedures;
- go for walks with him;
- monitor medication intake;
- show patience and love towards a person.
Simple steps to prevent dementia
One of the biggest challenges of caring for people with dementia is maintaining your own mental health. Caregivers of elderly patients often suffer from chronic fatigue and stress. Therefore, it is extremely important to sometimes allow yourself a break from caring for a sick person by transferring him for a few days to an institution that specializes in caring for the elderly.
Website www.sympaty.net – Beautiful and Successful. Author: Elena Burenyuk. Learn more about the site's authors.
Compulsions in OCD
To combat obsessions with OCD, the patient takes actions called compulsions. Thanks to such actions, a person tries to get rid of obsessions and feel less anxious. For example, constantly washing your hands, taking a shower, checking whether the appliances are unplugged, whether the taps in the house are turned off, the door is closed, repeating the behavior a certain number of times.
Sometimes, to relieve this anxiety, the patient needs to repeat the actions several times. For example, turn off the lights three times or turn off the valves in the bathroom so that obsessive thoughts recede. This is what happens, they go away, temporary relief comes, but soon it disappears. These are thoughts that interfere with life and affect a person’s behavior.
