1. Further knowledge about the causes of dementia including information about the brain

There are many different types of dementia

From completing workbook 1 you will remember there are many different types of dementia. What causes the different types of dementia is dependent upon how the brain cells are affected. Brain cells become damaged in a number of different ways. The effect on the brain varies depending on where and how the brain cells are damaged. The damage causes physical changes to the brain.

Alzheimer’s disease

• This is the most common form of dementia.
• It progresses gradually over time.
• The way the disease progresses tends to follow a predictable pattern.
• The damage to the brain cells usually starts in the temporal lobe of the brain which results in a person having problems with short term memory and new learning.
• Damage to all areas of the lobes of the brain is common as the disease progresses.

Vascular dementia

• Sometimes referred to as ‘stroke related dementia’.
• Can be caused by many small blood vessels being damaged or a single blood vessel (multi infarct and single infarct dementia).
• The damage to the brain cells are dependent upon where the blood vessel damage occurs so this could mean that any of the lobes are affected.
• Sometimes it is described as ‘stepwise’ in the way the changes occur.
• The way the disease progresses is very variable from person to person.

Lewy Body dementia

• This dementia shares similarities with both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
• Lewy bodies are tiny round deposits found in the nerve cells which disrupt the brain’s normal functioning.
• Hallucinations and delusions are commonly experienced.
• The person with Lewy Body dementia may react badly to anti-psychotic medications.

The image below shows the different lobes of the brain and provides a brief description of the work that they do.

The different lobes of the brain and a brief description of the work that they do

Further e-learning opportunity
The dementia programme from Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) has 7 free E Learning modules about all aspects of dementia:
http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/elearning/dementia/index.asp

(Within this workbook you will be signposted to specific aspects of these SCIE modules)

Further learning resources «» Next