DEFINITION:– progressive, relentless loss of mental function, characterized by degeneration of brain tissue, including loss of nerve cells and development of senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles
Symptoms:
Dementia –
- forgetfulness,
- depression,
- fears,
- anxiety,
- decreased emotion,
- personality changes,
- impaired judgment and abstract thinking,
- changed speech patterns,
- inability to interpret visual clues,
- difficulty driving
Later –
- long-term memory loss,
- difficulty with day to day tasks,
- wandering,
- agitation,
- irritability,
- hostility,
- physical aggression,
- loss of sense of time and place;
- incontinence,
- inability to eat, speak, swallow
- coma and death, often due to infections
Causes:
- Gene abnormalities
Treatment:
Lifestyle Recommendations
- Get plenty of exercise and keep the brain intellectually engaged
- Eat a well-balanced diet of natural foods
- Eat plenty of fibre (e.g. oat bran or rice bran)
- Avoid alcohol, cigarette smoke, processed foods and environmental toxins, especially heavy metals
- Drink at least 8 glasses of steam-distilled water only
Supplement Recommendations
- Zinc (80 mg daily, in divided doses) – immunity; helps with skin disorders
- Acetylcholine (500 mg 3x daily, before meals) – deficiency implicated in causing dementia
- Acetyl-L-cartinine (500 mg 2x daily) – enhances brain metabolism, slows deterioration of memory, reduces free radicals
- Boron (3 mg daily) – improves brain function and memory
Herbs –
- Butcher’s broom – improves circulation
- Ginkgo biloba extract – antioxidant; increases blood flow to brain