Dementia and how it changes a person

Featuring Dr. Duncan Miller, BSc, MD

Video Title: Dementia and How It Changes A Person Duration: 1 minute, 39 seconds

Dementia has a number of causes.

It can be caused by degeneration in your brain, and the most classic example of that is Alzheimer's disease. It can also be caused by small strokes and that's called multiple-infarct or vascular dementia.

Just to elaborate a bit more on that, many people have witnessed people that have had strokes at some point in their life or they're paralyzed on one part of their body, and have difficulty walking.

Well that's a sort of vascular insult where either - if you think of a garden hose, somebody's turned off the water, or that hose has burst and caused a stroke.

Vascular dementia is sort of like one of the soaker garden hoses where you have the individual little streams popping up. And in vascular dementia those individual streams are picked off, so whereas Alzheimer's may have a more gradual decline in brain function, vascular dementia often has a step-wise deterioration.

In order to reduce your risk of dementia you want to live a healthy life and that includes not smoking, minimizing your consumption of alcohol, exercising your body regularly, but also exercising your brain, and sometimes taking on novel pursuits such as bridge, or crosswords or Sudoku puzzles can help a little.

Just remember that treatment for your condition will vary with the individual and the condition they may have, so always consult your primary healthcare provider for more information.

Presenter: Dr. Duncan Miller, Family Doctor, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Family Doctor