What is senile dementia? What are the symptoms and, above all, can they be prevented? Let’s see together everything you need to know in this detailed guide.Senile dementia can be considered a chronic disease that occurs in old age even if there is early senile dementia that affects younger people.
According to the Wikipedia definition, senile dementia is a mix of cognitive deficits and behavioral disorders that progresses up to a total loss of autonomy as well as self-sufficiency.
But what exactly is senile dementia ?
It is a pathology that triggers with the death of neurons in some parts of the brain which are those on which important functions such as memory, attention but also awareness of themselves and others depend.
A senile dementia patient, therefore, gradually loses his cognitive abilities and becomes totally dependent on others, usually family members or structures that are predisposed to welcome people affected by this pathology.
The meaning of senile dementia is therefore that of a disabling disease that inexorably leads to a radical change in the person suffering from it.
In reality, however, it is difficult for a patient to experience only one type of dementia since senile dementia typically presents a mix of symptoms of one and the other.
With dementia as you live ?
It is difficult to quantify life expectancy because much depends on the patient, the severity of the symptoms and the type of senile dementia he suffers from, the treatments that are administered. Generally, however, life expectancy ranges from 3 to 6 years with peaks of 3 and 30. Death does not come, then, for senile dementia itself but rather for the complications that the disease brings, such as respiratory problems or a serious state of malnutrition due to the inability to feed yourself.
It has been calculated that senile dementia affects one fifth of the population over 65 years of age. Among the population of people over 80, the incidence of senile dementia is around 30%. Worldwide, around 47 million people suffer from senile dementia with an increase of around 12 million in recent years. In Italy alone there are over one million two hundred thousand cases of senile dementia.
