Scientist explained which types of dementia erase personality faster## Contribution

Dementia: hidden threat and rapid progression - expert reveals features of various forms of the disease

Alzheimer's disease can hide in the body for years, while vascular dementia and the rare Pick's disease develop rapidly. This was revealed in an exclusive interview with "Gazeta.Ru" by Valery Litvinov, Candidate of Medical Sciences.

The scientist emphasized that detecting dementia in its early stages presents significant difficulty, as patients' behavior can easily be confused with ordinary absent-mindedness. Nevertheless, there are 10 key signs that signal the development of the illness.

"Among them: frequent forgetfulness, difficulties with planning and concentration, speech problems, disorientation in time and space, loss of common sense, difficulties with logical tasks, sharp mood swings, personality changes, apathy, and moving objects to unexpected places," the expert reminded.

The specialist noted that different types of dementia require different amounts of time to destructively impact a person's body and personality. Alzheimer's disease - the most common type - can develop imperceptibly for years. According to Litvinov, it usually takes five to six years from the appearance of the first symptoms until the severe stage.

"After dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease, the next most common are vascular (15-20%) and alcoholic (5-10%). The first type can develop within a year after a stroke and progress quickly. In this case, nerve cells die due to impaired cerebral circulation, but without the accumulation of abnormal proteins," the scientist explained.

With alcoholic dementia, the death of neurons is provoked by the ethanol itself, contained in alcoholic beverages. The disease develops over 10 years.

"Rare types of dementia are of great interest to science and medicine. The problem is that they can only be diagnosed after the patient's death. For example, the poorly studied Pick's disease. It belongs to frontotemporal dementias. Unlike Alzheimer's disease, in this case memory does not decline, but speech is impaired to the point of complete breakdown," explained the PNIPU expert.

According to the scientist from Perm Polytechnic, this type progresses rapidly - over five to ten years (in severe forms, over two to three years) and changes the patient's behavior beyond recognition. Pick's dementia can be combined with alcoholism, which may be a manifestation of behavioral disorders, and may not be characteristic of the patient until the development of dementia. Such combinations severely aggravate existing mental disorders.