For many, diabetes just resembles a medical condition where the body cannot produce enough of the insulin required for the maintenance of the blood sugar levels. While a good many people think of diabetes as one of the toughest things around with complications like heart, eye and kidney issues revolving around with it.

However, not much is known about the relation between diabetes and dementia. Dementia being referred to as the chronic disorder caused as a result of brain disease or injury can be linked to diabetes shown as by the recent studies around.

We here would be looking into the relation between diabetes and dementia and seek how they correlate with each other. We’ll further look into the risk factors and more about dementia in our today’s entry.

So let’s head over to the ‘Diabetes and Dementia: What’s the Connection? & Risk Factors.

What’s Dementia

Dementia, also known by as senility is the term used to define the brain disease where the ability to think and remember slowly diminish along. These brain diseases affect a person’s daily rituals and ability to perform. The changes occurring in the dementia is often small and unnoticeable but becomes severe with time.

The case arises when the brain is affected by diseases like Alzheimer’s or strokes. Although Alzheimer’s has been counted as the major reason for dementia, other possible cases to remain.

Dementia and Its Occurrence/ Risk Factors for Dementia

Dementia, as we talked about, refers to the category of brain diseases that affect the functioning of the brain. Generally, the different types of brain disease like Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia and more are seen more prominently in the old age.

As the numbers rise in the age cordon, different initial signs like forgetfulness, confusion comes forth. Speaking of normally, a few occurrences doesn’t spell dementia as it is a commonly seen around in the old age. Apart from old age, smoking, alcohol intake, down syndrome and more can too cause dementia in the long run.

However, if such instances are frequent, then this might be a precursor to dementia. Attend such case with utmost care and seek the needed help from medical advisors on the matter. A timely diagnosis will help curb it at least a little.

The Connection between Diabetes and Dementia

Diabetes and dementia are linked to each other in quite a peculiar way. Diabetes as is it known to can cause several complications in life, as such dementia remains one of the major complications coming in as part and parcel of diabetes.

Diabetic people, especially the Type 2 ones are always at a higher risk cordon for developing dementia later in life due to the cardiovascular problems faced by them. Diabetes majorly causes vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s, where the blood flow in the brain in reduced substantially.

The ongoing studies for the connection between diabetes and Alzheimer’s reveal that on a similar wavelength to diabetes, glucose isn’t used properly in the brains of people with dementia. This, in turn, creates a nerve cell death which affects the interpretation ability of the brain. While in the case of vascular dementia, the brain cells are affected as a result of lack of oxygen.

Furthermore, nerve cells death in Alzheimer’s also affects the insulin receptors in the brain and disrupts the production of them in the body making it insulin insensitive.

The Signs and Symptoms of Dementia

We would be depicting the signs and symptoms of dementia in the list down below. Read along.

• Confusion paired with short-term memory loss
• Wandering off or losing their way in places
• Fast and rapid steps in movement
• Loss of control on bladder and bowel movement
• Problems in handling money
• Difficulty in properly following any instruction

What next to do?

Although your family or loved ones may be shy to speak up on their part for their dementia-related case, it’s strongly advised that you follow up with proper medical check-up to help you around. We here would provide a few essential steps that you may partake when the signs of dementia surfaces.

• Seek medical advice with a doctor and ask for the proper diagnosis of the case. A proper functioning test will help provide answers to whether the case is possible dementia or not.
• Follow up on the advice of the medical advisor and determine the best bit of care and treatment method.
• Look for the signs of diabetes in the family member showing signs of possible dementia as a poorly managed diabetes is also a root cause of Seek methods to manage and care for the diabetic issues.

How to reduce the risk of Diabetes and Dementia

The care and management procedure for diabetes and dementia is markedly similar to how we care for diabetic cases albeit with an added onus of caring for your brain. We’ve long talked about how managing diabetes can help in staying away from complications that may arise further in the future.

We won’t be doing the same chore over here speaking about the prevention and care module for diabetes. Instead, we’ll help you around with the care module for dementia for this one. We guess this one suits better. Go on.

• Include a healthy diet with ample Vitamin D, B6, B12 and folates on a regular basis.
• Indulge in exercise to help keep your body and mind fit at all times.
• Keep your social activities going on and be involved in things as that helps keep your mind afloat.
• Always look to protect your head while indulging in sports and other activities.

The Bottom Line

Dementia although deemed an incurable thing can still be managed and cared for. A proper medical guidance paired with healthy diet regime will help curb it better than ever. Don’t let the warning signs of dementia go unnoticed as it will spell complications later on. Seek medical guidance at the earliest.

Furthermore, as in cases of diabetes, the risk for dementia is higher, one should keep their diabetic symptoms and presence in check. As that is what will help you stay away from the complications of dementia down the line.

Well, that’s all from us on this one. We’ll be back with another entry the next time round. Stay safe and stay healthy.