10 Warning Signs You Already Have Dementia

Hello Health Champions. Today I want  to talk about the signs of dementia  

and why it is so critically important that we  recognize the signs early because even though  

the body has an amazing ability to recover and  regenerate dementia is one of those conditions  

that once we are beyond the initial early stages  it is just not reversible dementia in general  

is about mental decline it's a reduction  of the ability to perform mental processes  

so it's associated with memory disorders with  personality changes with impaired reasoning and  

because of that it is one of the most devastating  conditions that anyone could ever get because  

even though the person is technically still alive  that the body is still there the person that we  

once knew is not there anymore dementia is like an  umbrella term and encompasses many different types  

of dementia so the most common form of dementia  is alzheimer's and that's a form that's associated  

with specific findings with amyloid plaques and  with something called tau protein tangles but none  

of that's really important there's other types  with lewy body dementia where they have protein  

clumps and then there is vascular dementia that is  a result of multiple silent infarcts and this is  

often with people who have strokes and the  reason i say it's not all that important is  

that no matter what the type there's still not a  whole lot they can do about it it's more like an  

academic exercise of classification so we want  to understand the very early signs as well as  

the mechanisms that bring them about so that we  can do early detection but even better that we  

can do some prevention i watched some videos  about this and it was a little discouraging that  

most of the advice about diagnosis is just about  classification just about labeling it as dementia  

versus normal age-related decline or forgetfulness  and it's almost like the main purpose of having a  

classification having that label of dementia  is just so that we have a better tolerance a  

better understanding of what these people  are going through and who they are becoming  

it's like a child you can't be too upset with  the child because you know they're not mature  

you know they don't have the mental cognition  to deal with things the way we do but the main  

thing that i hope to really drive home is about  the process that if we catch things early then  

it is still reversible and why is that why is it  so hard to reverse it in the later stages because  

we need the brain to fix the brain we need the  function of the brain to be there to prevent  

further decline so once we have a certain amount  of brain function then we have the motivation  

to do something about it to exercise to take  action to lead an active life to make decisions  

about healthier foods and so forth and then that  activation drives the brain function which drives  

the motivation and so forth but the opposite is  also true that once we lose some brain function  

once the loss of brain function goes beyond a  certain point now we no longer have the motivation  

and therefore we lose the activation that further  declines brain function and so on and so forth so  

once it's beyond a certain point we just don't  have enough healthy viable brain tissue we don't  

have enough energy to change the mechanism to  change the process so i want to walk you through  

the seven stages of mental decline and then you  will more understand why these advanced cases  

are so tough that once the brain is gone it's  gone stage one for some reason is when you're  

still normal so i don't know why they call that  stage one instead of stage zero or prior to stage  

one but that's just the way they do it normal is  where you want to be stage number two is very mild  

decline and this is where we're still on the green  side of the spectrum it's not really dementia yet  

it's where we forget things occasionally  we might not have access to familiar words  

right away we might not remember where things  are as quickly as we used to and some of this  

is perfectly normal we all have good and bad  days and it could very well just be age related  

another thing to understand is when it comes to  brain degeneration that it's an ongoing process  

that we all have some of this but the trick is  to have it progress so slowly that we can live  

our lives and live out to the end of our lives  with as much of that function left as possible  

stage number three is early stage dementia  now you're kind of officially in the process  

of developing dementia you're still in the early  stages it's still considered a mild decline but  

some of the things that you might start observing  is forgetting names you're in a conversation with  

somebody you're being introduced you try to  remember what their name was but a minute  

later you have no idea what it was your short term  memory is slipping another way this could manifest  

would be if you forget what you just read you  watch a little movie clip or you read a paragraph  

and a minute later you don't know what it was  about and in this stage you might see people  

learn to compensate they figure out they're  aware that the short-term memory is slipping so  

they develop a strategy of marking their trail of  writing down things that they know that they need  

to remember but they'll probably forget and we  all do this to a degree because we use lists to  

stay organized and so forth but here's where it's  gone a little bit further and these people kind of  

mark their trail like with breadcrumbs where they  know they'll find the notes so that they have some  

organization in their life and their ability to  organize and get things done also gets worse with  

planning when it's complex when it's multiple  steps involved now they really can't handle it  

without marking their trail ahead of time and the  thing to understand here is that when people start  

to compensate and develop a strategy they still  have enough brain function they still have enough  

consciousness they're still aware of the problem  and they have some motivation at this point you  

can still turn it around if you understand  how the brain works and what the brain needs  

you can develop a strategy to actually reverse  this stage number four is still considered early  

stage dementia but you're a little further down  now there's moderate decline and this is where  

it's getting tougher and tougher to turn this  around it's almost impossible to reverse but  

you can still do things to slow it down an example  now would be that you forget recent event things  

that happen beyond just reading a paragraph you  might have done something and you don't remember  

it anymore another thing that often happens  here is impaired calculation your ability to do  

simple math is not so great anymore so an example  would be subtracting 7s you start with a 100 and  

you subtract 7. so 100 minus 7 is 93. 93 minus  7 is 86 and so forth so normally you should be  

able to do that even if you can't do it instantly  or as fast as someone else but once you get into  

this stage you're just not able to do that at  all and some of the other things you're losing  

is maybe the ability to pay bills to manage your  finances even if you concentrate you just can't  

figure it out anymore and tasks requiring more  planning and managing they're getting increasingly  

difficult so someone else has to start taking  over those tasks now when it comes to these stages  

we have to understand that even though we're  focusing mostly on the cognitive portion on  

diagnosing mental ability this mental ability is  reflected in physiology that the physical tissue  

of neurology it's declining and that this  decline is progressive and before we ever get  

to any noticeable decline in cognitive function  there's already been a progression of physical  

decline so we're talking about the cellular  machinery that your brain cells as they start ever  

so gradually declining in their ability to produce  energy in their ability to produce signals that's  

the beginning of this and then as it progresses  we might notice a decline in brain endurance and  

we'll take a look at what what that means and then  once we've had these first things then we see the  

early degeneration and eventually we see these  early signs that lead to more progressive signs  

that lead to dementia so again if we catch it in  the stages of early degeneration we can reverse  

this but as we start getting into the early  symptom and into the later symptoms now it's  

simply too late so in the very earliest stages  before there's any sign of cognitive impairment  

we might see a reduction in brain endurance  so this might be a reduction in attention span  

it might be more mental fatigue it could be that  you can't stay focused as long as you used to it  

might be that you feel you need caffeine  or some other stimulant to keep you going  

or it could be that you notice that in some other  aspect that you feel your brain function just  

isn't providing the quality of life that you're  used to you notice that there's a change there  

another thing to look for in the very earliest  stages is changes in posture and movement your  

cognition is still there but these things indicate  a degeneration of brain function of the physical  

capacity of the brain to perform work so if  you're sitting still and you're noticing a  

twitching or a tremor that's a sign that the brain  is not able to control that as well as it used to  

if you notice that your handwriting is getting  smaller and it's not because you're just a neat  

type of person that always wrote like this  but you used to write a certain way and now  

you're writing different that is becoming more  compressed called micrographia that's another sign  

if you can't smell the food as much smell is a  result of brain function like everything else  

absolutely everything so if you can't smell the  food that's very common if your quality of sleep  

is declining your brain function determines  the hormone production and the regulation of  

sleep cycles and the regulation of stress and so  forth another thing you might notice as your brain  

degenerates is a hunched posture so posture is  part of brain health we start our lives as babies  

we start as a in a fetal position we're all curled  up and then as the brain develops and progresses  

and the brain the frontal lobe learns to inhibit  certain things we get an upright posture and then  

as the brain starts weakening we get back we  get more and more curled and hunched over and  

we sort of return back to that childhood posture  another sign that the brain isn't working as  

well is a loss of arm swing that when you're  walking you might swing one arm more than the  

other or both arms may not swing very much at  all so the thing to understand though is that  

poor brain function results in these but it works  the other way around that if you pay attention to  

your posture and if you pay attention to your arm  swing you're actually reinforcing brain function  

so when do we start worrying about it being  dementia and when is it just something that  

is normal for age so with dementia it's very  common to have poor judgment but these people have  

chronically poor judgment they are unable to  have good judgment what's normal with age is  

that you have occasional bad choices but once you  think about it you're able to reason it out with  

dementia you're often unable to manage a budget  however i think every one of us has missed paying  

a bill at some time and that's different it's  once in a while people with dementia are often  

losing track of what time it is what day it is  what month or even season they can start in the  

summer and say oh are we going to have snow today  they really have no clue about time or even season  

normal would be that you don't know if it's  wednesday or thursday because there's a lot  

going on you got distracted but if you sit  down and think about it you can figure it out  

and with dementia people lose things but they're  also unable to retrace their steps and figure out  

where it is or what happened to it normal is  that we lose things from time to time but we  

still have this basic awareness of what happened  or where they might be and with dementia they  

also have difficulty being coherent so in a  conversation or trying to explain something  

the reasoning is all over the place there is no  structure or direction to it and normal would  

be that we're sometimes searching for a word we  occasionally get lost but given some time we can  

get back to our train of thought and this has  received some attention recently in the media  

where a lot of people are suggesting that  this is what might be going on with the  

leader of the free world you know what do  you want to do with button i want to box

i it be so lucky you know i mean but it is the  kinds of things or you know stuff that is coming  

out of florida stuff that's coming out of you know  robert e lee but in afghanistan you're the one

anyway stage number five is mid-stage so  now you're sort of in the middle or even  

past the middle of the spectrum is moderate to  severe decline and brain damage these people  

cannot recall their very basics things that  they have encountered and talked about and known  

all their lives all of a sudden they don't know  their own address or their own phone number  

of course their ability to realize and recall the  time or day or season is getting even worse and  

they have trouble selecting proper clothing  so like in this picture they have trouble  

matching things up and they're not able to  select appropriate clothing for the season  

or for the weather i don't want to go in depth  on the causes but i do want to touch on them very  

briefly here so you could get dementia you could  have brain damage from injury or trauma but that's  

relatively rare for all the cases of dementia  the vast majority of cases is brain disease  

and degeneration it's a gradual decline of the  mental processes due to the physical degeneration  

and the first thing to understand in that  context is the principle of use it or lose it  

your muscles work the same way if you  break your arm you put your arm in a cast  

then that muscle will shrink because you're not  using it that is the most important component  

of brain degeneration yes there are  genetic predisposition and all that  

but we have to understand the the basic mechanism  here and what does the brain need it needs fuel  

which is the stuff we eat and then it needs oxygen  to burn that food that's the fuel that produces  

energy but then the second part is what people  miss it's the stimulation and there's a whole lot  

of confusion about how to stimulate the brain that  most people think it's playing bridge and doing  

crossword puzzles and having an interesting life  but the fact is the vast majority more than 90%  

of the stimulation of the signals that keep the  brain alive come from movement and that is why i  

always talk about exercise it's not the  best to reverse insulin resistant but it is  

the best to keep your brain alive if you  don't stimulate it then you'll see a reduction  

in blood flow which is part of this brain  degeneration and if you don't lose it then  

that is how the brain ends up with less blood flow  another factor that can speed up this degeneration  

is neuro inflammation and this has to do with  metabolic disease this is what i talk a lot about  

in my videos and even though most people worry  about their metabolism for weight loss or diabetes  

you have to understand that alzheimer's and  dementia is often called type 3 diabetes that  

is how strong the link is between the two being  insulin resistant and having metabolic syndrome  

metabolic disease is a cause of neuroinflammation  and then some other additional causes will be  

toxins that inflame the body and toxins that come  from food and the gi tract so environmental insult  

and from food stage six is mid to late stage  dementia now you're getting really close to  

the red these people have severe decline and one  example of what's happening is they can't even  

recall their spouse's name and this is where  it's becoming so devastating for a couple that  

has known each other their entire life and all  of a sudden that person is just gone they're  

there in the flesh it's like they should be there  but they're just not and these people have to be  

watched constantly they're often kept in an  institution by now because they tend to wander  

and get lost and they have very little judgment on  how to take care of themselves so they very easily  

get injured as well now they can't even perform  the very basics of taking care of themselves  

they need help with dressing and eating and in  addition there's just basically nothing left of  

their original personality their major personality  disorders number seven is late stage dementia  

now you're almost all the way gone and this is  very severe decline these people have complete  

detachment they're just basically not there at all  anymore they're non-responsive you talk to them  

you gesture and there's just no recognition of  anything they might produce random words but  

there's just no context or no meaning to it they  have no awareness of themselves or their condition  

and another thing that often happens at this point  is they can't even swallow any more if you feed  

them i hope you can really really see that the  things that we usually associate with dementia  

those are stages that are too late to do something  about so when you're at this stage when you have  

the ability to compensate when you have some  motivation to develop strategies this is the range  

where you want to notice and do something  about it in the very early stages even before  

there is any cognitive decline when there's just  a little loss of brain endurance or posture that's  

where it's time to do something if you enjoyed  this video you're going to love that one and if  

you truly want to master health by understanding  how the body really works make sure you subscribe  

hit that bell and turn on all the notifications  so you never miss a life saving video