Public awareness is imperative for prevention of dementia 

In Bangladesh, there is little discussion and awareness about dementia, though it is a national health problem. Information about the disease dementia was at first disclosed by a German physician named Alice Alzheimer in 1906. Dementia is a decaying disease of human brain. There is change in intellect, power of memory and mode of personality when anyone is affected by the disease. Dementia patients face the trouble of memory loss. The affected people easily forget recent past, but they can tell about incidents of 10 years back.

When there is a gradual change in mental and daily activities of people are called as dementia or loss of memory disease. When affected by dementia, some changes gradually start in human behaviour such as repetition of same question within short span of time, giving attention or taking decision become very difficult for them. The characteristics also include starting from the change of feeling to tendency to get easily hurt.  
       
There is the tendency of things such as decreasing intellectual activities, thinking capacity, doing things with logic, and general calculation. Another feature is change in personality, that is, change in behaviour. After being affected by dementia, his/her previous behaviour will be changed and there may be beheviour-related problem.

According to World Health Organization (WHO), incident of death caused by dementia increased two fold since 2000. Dementia ranked five among the lists of diseases, which cause death among people in the world   

According to media reports, about 600 people in USA are affected by dementia on an average daily and women are affected more than men. 

According to a report, the number of dementia affected people in 1915 in Bangladesh was five lakh, which is expected to reach its number nine lakh by 2030, while another report claimed that the country has over 11 lakh dementia patients at the moment.

According to a report, the number of dementia affected people in 1915 in Bangladesh was five lakh, which is expected to reach its number nine lakh by 2030, while another report claimed that the country has over 11 lakh dementia patients at the moment.

The actual cause of dementia could not be known till now. But there are some risk factors for which people may be affected by it. It includes family history, high blood pressure, high level cholesterol, habits of smoking and excess intake of wine, thyroid problem, and those who are away from doing intellectual activities. These are the risk factors for dementia.     
      
Dementia may occur due to frequent stroke or any infection in brain, even in case of vitamin deficiency along with the hereditary cause. Generally people aged over 60 fall victim to the disease, while people aged 40-50 are also affected by the disease. If affected by this disease, the patient's condition starts worsening over time.

Regarding its prevention, it can be said that it is needed to maintain healthy lifestyle, to keep diabetes and hypertension under control, and keep brain active in different ways. There is a less chance of dementia in case of active brain.

When dementia occurs, it is difficult to cure it, but there are measures such as lifestyle modification and psychological therapy by which we can reduce the speed of dementia's natural course. 
                              
There is necessity of giving combined treatment of neurologists and psychologists to patients. If patients are brought under timely diagnosis and treatment, they can lead normal life. Necessary steps should be taken in this regard.

The right activists working on the issue called for conducting research about it so that the affected people get the scope of its treatment. It would be possible to determine its treatment when known to us through proper research.

The number of patients is rising day by day, but its preventive measures are not satisfactory in the country. It is needed to aware people so that people at old age do not fall in trouble.

The important thing in this regard is that awareness about the disease is urgently needed. There is no alternative to raising awareness about the disease. If awareness is raised, there will be good results in this regard.         

It is needed to set up dementia corner at hospitals. Besides, doctors and nurses should be trained about the disease and their duties. 

From media report it is known that Bangladesh Alzheimer Society has been working in the country to raise awareness about the disease. I wish success in their activities. I hope that all concerned will come forward regarding awareness and the prevention of dementia for the sake of public health.       

If any initiative aimed at raising countrywide awareness is done, it would be helpful for controlling the disease.