2023-04-17 02:52:11
Due to the rapid aging of the population, the number of dementia patients is increasing and the number of missing persons is increasing. In particular, when outdoor activities increase in spring, the number of missing elderly people with dementia increases, so you often receive text messages (missing alert text messages) on your cell phone containing the name and attire of the missing person. It is important to be aware of, prevent, and manage suspected symptoms of the pre-dementia stage (mild cognitive impairment), which can progress to Alzheimer’s, the most common dementia.
According to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service’s statistics on diseases of public interest on the 17th, the number of dementia patients has increased by regarding 30% in the past five years, from regarding 460,000 in 2017 to 600,000 in 2021. During the same period, the number of patients with mild cognitive impairment increased by 67% from regarding 180,000 in 2017 to 300,000 in 2021.
About 1-2% of normal people suffer from dementia due to problems with the cognitive function of the brain. It is known that 10-15% of patients with mild cognitive impairment progress to Alzheimer’s disease. In particular, patients with mild cognitive impairment are nearly 10 times more likely to develop dementia than the general population, so family members and people around them need to pay special attention to signs of abnormalities.
Park Jeong-hoon, director of the Center for Neurology at Incheon Himchan General Hospital, said, “Even if the brain degenerates during normal aging, dementia does not appear immediately. After this stage, dementia appears.”
Dementia not only causes memory loss, but also causes language, time-spatial understanding, and calculation skills, as well as personality changes. There are over 100 types of dementia. Representative examples include Alzheimer’s dementia, which causes memory problems, vascular dementia caused by cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke and cerebral infarction, and Lewy body dementia caused by the accumulation of toxic substances in the brain. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common and accounts for 50-80% of dementia cases.
Mild cognitive impairment is an intermediate stage between amnesia and Alzheimer’s dementia. Memory, cognition, calculation, and language abilities are poor, but daily life is possible, so in the early stages, there are many cases where people do not notice. Even if family members or people around them recognize cognitive impairment, they may not feel the seriousness because they do not have any problems in their daily life.
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