Tuesday, September 16, 2008
One common Personality Change in late adulthood is Dementia
Dementia is a brain disease that cause memory and cognitive abilities to deteriorate. It robs people of their personality. Dementia has an effect on individuals in late adulthood. It is not as progressive as Alzheimer disease but has some of the same symptom's. Dementia can be caused by complications of chronic high blood pressure, blood vessel disease or a stroke. Here are some risk factors of cognitive decline with dementia including genetic. They are female gender, medical conditions, heart disease,diabetes, lifestyle choices such as smoking, substance abuse, psychological and psychosocial factors such as low education achievement, lack of physical activity, lack of social interaction and leisure activities. It is very important to try to live a health life. Just three weeks ago I had my yearly physical and my doctor informed me that I need to lose weight( 20lbs.) I thought that this was a little extreme, but I decided to take his advice, I have loss a total of 11lbs in four weeks. As I shared in my last blog, my grandfather died from these diseases. I have made a conscious decision to learn how to prevent this from occurring in my life and others. From Dimensions of Human Behavior it informs me that poor health can later on contribute to having dementia or Alzheimer disease that leads to personality change. If I want to live a long health life I must consider these factors. Every time I have my blood pressure checked I am at the boarder line of hypertension. My doctor cautioned me, he stated if I loss the weight my blood pressure will drop several points. How many of us go through out our day not realizing the dangers we put ourselves in. I think I am health, I eat the right food's and exercise everyday. Little did I know that being health determine will you develope Dementia. Take a look at all these risk factors and examine what is it that you may need to do to prevent yourself from these diseases. Be safe, look for signs from your ones, don't let it be to late, early prevention save lives.
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Deidre,
Your topic of choice is a good knowledgeable resource regarding our health. I consider myself to be a partial health freak. My mother is heavy set and because of this I am self conscious about my weight. I am scared to gain weight so I try and eat fruits, veggies, and drink plenty of water. Usually I don not snack on junk food because I fear I might gain a pound or two. I too believe that as African Americans we must defiantly have health screenings to protect our health in the future. Dementia appears to be a serious issue among women and it can be harmful so thank you for the enlightenment.
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