Ageing Brain and Dementia Flashcards
What are the neurocognitive domains?
- perceptual-motor function
- language
- learning and memory
- social cognition
- complex attention
- executive function
What’s involved in the perceptual-motor function domain?
- visual perception
- visuoconstructional reasoning
- perceptual-motor coordination
What’s involved in the language domain?
- object naming
- word finding
- fluency
- grammar and syntax
- receptive language
What’s involved in the learning and memory domain?
- free recall
- cued recall
- recognition memory
- semantic and autobiographical long-term memory
- implicit learning
What’s involved in the social cognition domain?
- recognition of emotions
- theory of mind
- insight
What’s involved in the complex attention domain?
- sustained attention
- divided attention
- selective attention
- processing speed
What’s involved in the executive function domain?
- planning
- decision-making
- working memory
- responding to feedback
- inhibition
- flexibility
Definition of major neurocognitive disorder?
- significant cognitive decline
- cognitive deficits interfere with independence in everyday activities
Definition of mild neurocognitive disorder?
- modest cognitive decline
- cognitive deficits don’t interfere with capacity for independence
How is dementia an umbrella term?
-used to describe any type of decline in cognitive function that causes problems with everyday activity
What are the 2 key types of dementia?
- Alzheimer disease
- vascular dementia
- may be continuum from one to the other though
What are the underlying processes in Alzheimer’s disease?
- amyloid plaques (bundles of proteins clumped outside neurones), in dementia they aren’t broken up and cleared from the brain
- inside neurones there’s neurofibrillary tangles that break up the internal structure leading to lower levels of activity and cell death (results in shrinkage of the brain)
- gross atrophy of the affected regions, including degeneration in the temporal lobe and parietal lobe and parts of frontal cortex and cingulate gyrus
What are the early signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease?
- memory loss
- difficulty performing familiar tasks
- language problems
- disorientation with time and place
- poor/decreased judgement
- problems with abstract thought
- misplacing things
- changes in mood or behaviour
- changes in personality
- loss of initiative
Underlying processes of vascular dementia?
- hemorrhagic stroke (weakened/diseased blood vessels rupture and blood leaks into brain tissue)
- ischemic stroke (blood clots stop the flow of blood to an area of the brain)
How do lewy bodies cause different signs and symptoms of dementia?
(Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB)
- results from clumps of alpha-synuclein and ubiquitin protein
- fluctuating cognition with pronounced variations in attention/alertness
- spontaneous parkinsonism
- visual hallucinations ranging from abstract shapes/colours to conversations with deceased loved ones
