There’s quite a bit of misunderstanding about what dementia is exactly. The short definition is that dementia is an umbrella term for any degenerative condition of the brain. In a purely word-comparison context, the word dementia is not that different cancer. But like cancer, dementia can be split into very specific conditions, depending on the quality and rate of degeneration or causes of dementia – just like cancer can be split into the different regions or tissues of the body, and particular risk factors can be pinpointed according to each type of cancer. The biggest misconception about dementia is that it is a natural part of ageing – which it’s not. Dementia is preventable in so many ways, but because people have systematically refused to change certain aspects of their lifestyles, the resulting dementia has taken on a fatalistic image.
A few words on the types of dementia: some forms are famous and have spawned entire fields of research unto themselves. Amongst them are Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Lewy body disease (LBD). There’s also dementia pugilistica (DP), which is what professional boxers are quite vulnerable to, caused by repeated traumatic injuries to the brain. Then there is dementia praecox, which is actually an old term for schizophrenia, so it’s not even really dementia as we know it. The key here is that true dementia is physical in nature: some brain tissue is not working the way it’s supposed to, usually due to physical damage or chemical change. Psychological problems, though they can be rooted in physical damage, can also occur when the brain is anatomically, and otherwise, fine.
Of course the overall ageing process of our genes is unpreventable, much like skin elasticity. But whereas skin cells have a limited “shelf-life”, brain cells can be moulded throughout life. Barring exceptionally strange genetic conditions or severe physical trauma, dementia is not the unavoidable death sentence the way it has come to be portrayed. The first step is to demystify this “mysterious” condition.