Cognitive Impairments - Dementia

Question 1

The brain and cortex

Answer 1

1. Sheet of nerve cells that covers the whole surface of the brain
2. Contains billions of nerve cells
3. Processes information for perception, thoughts, language, decision making
4. Parts of the cortex include lobes and fissures

Question 2

Cortex and fissures

Answer 2

1. Longitudinal fissure divides the brain into the right and left hemisphere
2. Left hemisphere - language, analytical, fact, detail
3. Right hemisphere - spatial awareness, emotional processing, responding to music, value of good/bad, big picture
4. Two halves connected by long nerve cells that send information from one hand to another and help each other

Question 3

Lobes

Answer 3

1. Frontal - reasoning, social behaviour, stopping and starting
2. Temporal - memory, speech, understanding
3. Parietal - making sense of surroundings and relationship to it
   Occipital - making sense of vision

Question 4

Cognitive symptom awareness -
Memory - disorder - what happens

Answer 4

1. Memory - disorientation and amnesia - difficulty learning and remembering things
2. Communication - dysphasia - difficulty understanding and using language
3. Body language - dyspraxias - difficulty knowing what your saying
4. Visual processing - agnosios - difficulty seeing things
5. Planning, judging, controlling - dysexecutive function and disinhibition - difficulty planning and controlling behaviour

Question 5

Temporal lobes - memory impairments

Answer 5

1. Learning and memory problems
2. Often last in, first out
3. ‘The filling cabinet’
4. Orientation

Question 6

Hippocampus

Answer 6

1. Two halves - one in each hemisphere
2. Right - non verbal, emotional and spatial memories
3. Left - verbal, linguistics memories
4. Gives memories about personal experiences and sends to cortex

Question 7

Parietal lobes - body and space awareness

Answer 7

1. Difficulty with skilled actions
2. Problems scanning the environment
3. Poor awareness of body position
4. Problems with reading, writing and numbers
5. Visual neglect

Question 8

Occipital lobes - visual processing

Answer 8

1. Visual blind spots
2. Visual hallucinations
3. Problems seeing lines, edges and shapes
4. Problems seeing colour
5. Problems seeing movement
6. Misperceiving objects with similar characteristics

Question 9

frontal lobes - planning and disinhibition

Answer 9

1. Top half controls thought and goal directed action
2. Bottom half controls emotion and social behaviour

Question 10

Planning impairments

Answer 10

1. Repetitive actions
2. Poor concentration
3. Inefficient behaviour
4. Inability to apologise
5. Inability to sequence events

Question 11

Social and emotional control problems

Answer 11

1. Loss of care
2. Rash and impulsive behaviour
3. Rudeness
4. Sexual disinhibition
5. Aggression
6. Loss of social norms

Question 12

Dementia and the brain

Answer 12

1. Logical and language impaired in the left hemisphere
2. Creative processes impaired in the right hemisphere
3. Creative therapies tap into the brain that are still in tact