Alcoholic dementia: types, signs, symptoms, treatment, predictions

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Ethyl alcohol is a drug that causes negative health effects. As a result of prolonged abuse, alcoholic dementia develops, which at some point becomes irreversible. The patient can become an invalid, completely losing the ability to move and serve himself.

Alcoholic dementia

When getting into the body, ethyl alcohol provokes disorders of the functions of neurotransmitters responsible for emotions and human behavior. As a result of prolonged and systematic abuse of hot drinks, the patient develops addiction and mental disorders, the final stage of which is alcoholic dementia. It marks the beginning of severe intellectual disorders.

The greatest danger to the body is acetaldehyde, formed in the process of metabolism of ethyl alcohol. It exerts toxic effects on the vascular walls, provoking the development of microthrombi and atherosclerosis. Simultaneously, all internal organs, especially the liver, kidneys, heart, gastrointestinal tract and brain, suffer.

Alcoholic dementia can be characterized as persistent dementia, resulting from prolonged damage to neurons with ethyl alcohol. According to statistics, most often this disease is diagnosed in Finland, the countries of Asia and the states of the former USSR.

The first symptoms of alcoholic dementia are often detected in old age, but can manifest much earlier. It depends on the duration of alcohol abuse, concomitant diseases and hereditary factors.

Patients seriously damaged or completely lost vital functions of intelligence:

• memory;
• speech;
• reasoning;
• perception.

According to the WHO study, more than 46 million people worldwide suffer from alcoholic dementia. Doctors warn that any brain damage is irreversible, because the cells of this organ are not restored. You can only stop the further progression of the disease, but this is only possible if the person completely refuses alcohol.
Video story about alcoholic dementia:

Types of

Alcoholic dementia can develop in different ways, affecting certain parts of the brain:

• bark of the cerebral hemispheres;
• subcortical layer;
• multiple sites of the central nervous system.

Most often people with chronic alcoholism are diagnosed with cortical dementia. In this case, the main impact is applied to those structures of the cortex of the cerebral hemispheres, which are responsible for consciousness and memory.

The patient ceases to recognize close people, can not even remember his name and does not understand what is happening to him. In addition to thinking, the center of praxis suffers. A person loses the ability to any practical actions - can not write, hold a spoon, and his speech is violated.

Subcortical dementia manifests itself with concomitant vascular pathologies. The structures that transmit the nerve impulses from the cerebral cortex to the underlying parts suffer most. The patient deteriorates unconscious activity.

Violations in this case are not as radical as in cortical dementia, but they also pose a danger to mental health. The essence of intellectual processes is changing. The thinking of the patient slows down, he is constantly in a bad mood, apathy, which often provokes a deep depression.

Vascular pathology against prolonged alcoholism can also cause the development of cortical-subcortical dementia. In such cases, all clinical manifestations of the forms of the disease described earlier are present.

In this case, diagnosis is seriously hampered, because often violations of one of the brain regions prevail.

Another type of alcoholic dementia is multifocal, characterized by multiple sites of necrosis and degeneration. Lesions can be localized in different parts of the brain, from which neurological disorders directly depend in each individual case. Possible violations of speech, loss of ability to perform purposeful and professional actions, memory loss, disorientation in space.

In addition, multifocal dementia is characterized by impaired subcortical structures - myoclonus, cerebellum, thalamus. As a result, a person can fixate himself on a single sensation or thought, constantly being drowsy and sluggish. The patient's walk thus often becomes shaky.
Unlike other types of dementia, multifocal progresses very quickly. In just a few months, complete personal degradation may occur.

The development of alcoholic dementia always occurs in several stages, the course of which depends on the individual characteristics of the patient. Sometimes there come moments when he realizes that he is losing his memory and consciousness, begins to feel that he is becoming an incomplete person.

Stages of development of alcohol dementia

Symptoms of true dementia may accompany pseudodementia, as well as reactive conditions. This creates additional difficulties in diagnosing the disease.

By volume of damage, dementia is divided into total and lacunar. Total dementia is formed in large formations and disorders of blood flow in the frontal lobes.

At the same time, the disintegration of a person's personality is progressing:

• is deteriorating intellect;
• lost the ability to learn;
• violated the emotional-volitional sphere;
• shame disappears;
• is limited to a range of interests.

Lacunar dementia develops in the defeat of brain structures that are responsible for some intelligence capabilities. First of all, the patient is reduced short-term memory: he forgets where he is, what he was going to do a minute ago. Emotional-volitional sphere is weakly disturbed, but asthenic disorders, including tearfulness, mood swings, may appear.

In terms of severity, there are 3 types of alcoholic dementia:

1. Light.
2. Moderate.
3. Heavy.

The mild degree of dementia is characterized by serious impairment of intellectual activity. However, the patient remains able to critically assess the disease. A person can live alone, do the usual housework - clean, cook, wash.

Moderate dementia is accompanied by more significant impairment of intelligence and a decreased ability to critically assess one's own condition. A person begins to experience difficulties in everyday life - when using a stove, TV, phone, it is difficult for him to open the door lock himself. In this condition, the patient should not stay at home alone for long periods of time, he requires extraneous care.

Reasons for

The main reason for the development of alcoholic dementia is a prolonged and regular brain damage with ethanol.

The mechanism of alcohol exposure on the body is very complicated, but among its main directions can be identified the following:

• intoxication of brain tissue;
• circulatory disturbance in the brain;
• CNS damage by ethanol metabolites.

Penetrating into the body, ethyl alcohol immediately enters the bloodstream, which carries to all organs, including the brain, where it causes severe intoxication of tissues. Since the nerve cells can not be restored, with each glass in the patient begin to progress intellectual disorders.

Also ethanol breaks vascular tone, provoking a worsening of blood circulation. Some parts of the brain begin to suffer from a lack of oxygen and nutrients. As a result, the cells of the body gradually die, while the vascular walls are also destroyed.

Ethanol metabolites, including acetaldehyde, are a serious health hazard. They provoke the destruction of nerve cells. This leads to alcoholic polyneuropathy, which is often accompanied by dementia.

With chronic alcoholism, the possibility of developing dementia is very high.

However, there are also several risk groups, which include:

• elderly people;
• patients with diabetes mellitus;
• genetically predisposed people;
• smokers with experience;
• patients with pathologies of the heart and blood vessels.

Also, doctors note that dementia is more susceptible to poorly educated people with a narrow range of interests. It is they who most often suffer from chronic alcoholism, which leads to dementia.

Signs and symptoms

Symptoms of alcoholic dementia clearly differ in the stages of the development of the disease. At an early stage, they are still weakly expressed, and not only worry little about the person himself, but also about his relatives.

The first attributes are:

• infantile;
• memory corruption;
• spatio-temporal disorientation;
• false memories.

The main symptom of the onset of dementia is the appearance of childhood traits. The patient can not argue his point of view or independently make any decision. This behavior around them is sometimes mistaken for a "middle age crisis" or usual fatigue.

Memory disorders - verbal, figurative and emotional - are attached to infantilism. The patient forgets what he said or did just recently.

It is very important to begin treatment when the first symptoms of alcoholic dementia appear, because at first they are still reversible. However, without treatment, signs of the disease progress.

Subsequently, symptoms of dementia are added to them:

• loss of ability to analyze and generalize;
• loss of concentration;
• difficulties with switching from one action to another;
• narrowing of the circle of interests;
• thinking by primitive associations.

As the alcohol dementia progresses, the patient becomes pessimistic and too conservative. He remembers with warmth the time when alcohol was cheap and compares it with the present. All the interests of the patient are reduced to eating and drinking alcohol.

Diagnosis of dementia

Consequences and predictions of

At an early stage, alcoholic dementia can still be completely cured by completely giving up alcohol, dieting and taking vitamins.

Otherwise irreversible consequences will develop:

• marasmus;
• personality degradation;
• amnesia;
• immobilization;
• disability.

Dementia is irreversible and does not respond to treatment - it is possible only to suspend the further development of the disease in order to prevent a situation in which a person becomes dangerous to leave one alone. Although female alcoholism is considered incurable, it is easier to suppress dementia in women than in men. However, in any case, a long rehabilitation with the work of qualified psychotherapists and moral support of relatives is required.

Alcoholic dementia develops rapidly and leads to complete personality degradation, which is also irreversible. A person becomes an egoist, shows aggression in response to any criticism in his address or the inability to get what he wants. He loses the ability to love, sympathize with other people, rejoice.

The rapidly developing amnesia erases all important moments from the patient's memory. He does not remember his childhood, his youth, he ceases to recognize relatives. Even his own reflection in the mirror of the patient begins to frighten, because it seems to him a stranger.

Alcoholic dementia is becoming a difficult test for a close patient, whom he accuses in everything, showing aggression. Often on this ground there are scandals with police interference caused by frightened neighbors.

Severe form of alcoholic dementia leads to disability. A person by the level of his development becomes a child who can not cook food, go to the toilet himself, open the door with a key. There are cases when patients fall into childhood and remain in it forever - they try to go to kindergarten or school, play with the guys in the yard.

With the onset of the final degree of alcoholic dementia, a person falls into psychic and physical insanity. He loses strength, mumbles, his pupils stop reacting to the light, the gait becomes aching, there is a constant tremor of hands and feet.

In the absence of treatment, the disease ends with complete exhaustion of the body due to prolonged intoxication. The person stops walking, and his mind becomes confused. He can no longer serve himself and live independently.

Treatment of

To combat alcoholic dementia, the first thing to do is to convince the patient of the harm of alcoholism and the need to completely eliminate alcohol from his life. However, to begin any conversations about the dangers of alcoholism follows only after sobering a person, otherwise he simply will not be able to perceive the information.

Treatment of the disease should be comprehensive. First, it is necessary to achieve stabilization of the human condition and reduce the severity of symptoms. In parallel, treatment of concomitant diseases that complicate the course of alcoholic dementia is required, for example, atherosclerosis, hypertension.

If treatment begins at an early stage, when memory and intellect disorders are still poorly expressed, the following medicines show effectiveness:

• nootropic drugs;
• means for improving cerebral circulation;
• preparations to improve metabolism.

Nootropics such as Nootropil stimulate mental activity, memory and increase the body's resistance to ethanol intoxication. To improve the supply of the brain, Cinnarizine, Cinnaron, Vertizin are prescribed. Cerebrolysin stimulates the transport of glucose from the blood to the brain, which is necessary to maintain normal intellectual activity.

Because dementia is often accompanied by problems with night sleep and irritability, patients are prescribed sedatives. If there is a depressive disorder, the patient may be prescribed antidepressants.

Severe forms of alcoholic dementia are accompanied by psychomotor excitation of the patient. In such cases, he is given haloperidol, which calms, not raising drowsiness.

In the complex therapy of alcoholic dementia, doctors often recommend that their patients take alcohol tinctures of medicinal plants:

• eleutherococcus;
• leuzeya;
• of ginseng;
• Schisandra.

Because the human body, suffering from alcoholic dementia, is weakened, it is also prescribed vitamins and minerals, including:

• Vitamin E.
• Omega-3 fatty acids.
• Coenzyme Q10.

According to studies, vitamin E slows the progression of alcoholic dementia. However, it is important to strictly follow the dosage prescribed by the doctor. An overdose of this vitamin can be dangerous for people with a weak heart.

Omega-3 fatty acids protect against mild cognitive impairments that appear against the background of vascular problems. They also reduce the risk of stroke and cardiac death.

Coenzyme Q10 is an effective antioxidant. It reduces the severity of the disorders of the intellect and memory.
It is important that a person in a period of treatment is in a comfortable environment for him. The room should be light, in the absence of other people in it must constantly work TV or radio. This will help the patient to concentrate.

To make social rehabilitation faster, a person must maintain contact with the outside world. This is facilitated by visits of relatives, friends, as well as doctors.

To save the temporary orientation, the patient must constantly see the calendar and the clock. To ensure that he does not lose focus in others, every medical worker should wear a badge with his name and constantly remind the patient what his name is.

If the disease has been started and a person is immobilized, it will not be able to cure him. He will become disabled and will need constant care at home. It can be carried out by both relatives and hired nurses with medical education or without.

Prevention and recommendations of doctors

Measures for the prevention of alcoholic dementia are based on minimizing the effect of risk factors and preventing the underlying causes of the disease. So, the hereditary factor plays a big role in the formation of chronic alcoholism. Therefore, people who have had patients with this disease in their family should drink alcohol with extreme caution, or better - completely abandon it.

Other risk factors for alcoholic dementia include:

• . Disorders of metabolic processes.
• Age changes in the level of sex hormones.
• Infectious diseases.
• Craniocerebral injury.
• Reduced intellectual and physical activity.
• Diseases of the heart and blood vessels.

Accordingly, in order to avoid alcoholic dementia, a person must move more, develop intellectually, and eat right. It is also necessary to take hormones in case of a decrease in their natural production, but only on the prescription of a doctor, to vaccinate and to treat illnesses on time. However, the main measure of prevention is the rejection of bad habits.

With all these recommendations, you can protect yourself not only from alcohol, but also from other types of dementia. This will avoid many health risks and preserve clarity of mind and memory until old age.