UNTREATABLE CAUSES OF DEMENTIA: PARKINSON’S DISEASE

Apr
02
2009

Posted by: admin in Categories: General health.
Using Tags: General health

It used to be said that about a third of people with Parkinson’s disease would eventually develop dementia. This view would nowadays be considered controversial. Parkinson’s disease can affect the intellect, but in many instances this is insufficient to cause what we would consider to be dementia. It is particularly associated with a slowness of thinking and reacting, but often memory is relatively intact until the later stages in those whose intellect ultimately fails.

It is important not to forget that most people who develop Parkinson’s disease are relatively elderly and are therefore also likely to develop other conditions that occur more frequently in older people, illnesses that cause dementia among them. This has muddied the waters, and it is probable that some people whose dementia has been ascribed to their Parkinson’s disease were all the time suffering from some other unrelated condition, also causing dementia. Taking account of this possibility, a more accurate representation of the truth would probably be that only about one person in ten who has Parkinson’s disease is likely to develop dementia because of the Parkinson’s disease itself. The total number of people with Parkinson’s disease and dementia will be more than one in ten, as some of them may also have Alzheimer’s disease, multiple infarct dementia, or some other cause.

It should also be understood that some of the medicines that are given to people with Parkinson’s disease to treat their movement disorders, may themselves cause confusion. If a person with Parkinson’s is found to be confused, rather than immediately attributing this to dementia caused by the disease, it is important first to make sure that the confusion isn’t a side-effect of the sufferer’s drugs.