Dementia is scary. The thought of slowly losing your memory and not being able to recall your loved ones or the memories you’ve shared with them would move the coldest of hearts. As such, when most are diagnosed with dementia, they understandably react in a devastated manner. However, you can rest assured that a diagnosis does not necessarily mean you will lose all memory the next day and have trouble functioning in everyday life the week after.
Medication today is quite effective in delaying the onset of serious symptoms and in addition to following your doctor’s instructions religiously, you can also make certain changes in your lifestyle to help manage your illness. It also helps if you can stay social and meet people and engage in constructive interaction. Finally, keeping your mind engaged will go a long way in keeping symptoms like memory loss from setting in early.
LIFESTYLE CHANGES
As mentioned above, being diagnosed with dementia is not a death warrant. Dementia is varied in the speed of onset of symptoms and their aggressiveness from person to person. Furthermore, there are certain lifestyle changes that you can make which will help further prolong the onset of symptoms. For example, If you’re having trouble remembering things, then you can start keeping reminders and making notes. Moreover, by having the task of managing reminders and notes, you would be keeping your mind engaged and the organization in your life will reflect in your cognition and thought process as well. This itself will also have an effect and could help in prolonging the onset of symptoms.
Alternatively, if you’re having an issue in keeping up with the time and keeping track of days and dates, then you can invest in dementia clocks, or memory clocks as they’re more appropriately known. While ‘watches for dementia’ may sound like a strange idea, they can actually be quite helpful. These clocks are made in accordance with the symptoms that you’re dealing with and can help in keeping patients engaged and keep track of time and days.
HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE
The biggest behavioral change one experiences at the beginning of the onset of dementia is a withdrawal from society. You need to stay social in order to help manage your illness and that doesn’t necessarily mean you go out to a club or a bar with a lot of people. You can do something as simple as joining a book club. Such an activity wouldn’t put too much pressure on you and you’d be keeping your mind engaged through reading which is important as mentioned above.
STAY ENGAGED
It is imperative that you keep your mind engaged! Exercising your brain’s cognitive functions can help in delaying the onset of serious symptoms such as cognitive issues, slowed comprehension, and memory loss. One way of staying engaged is to play board games and solve puzzles. You can also download different apps on to your phone which can help with this task. In fact, you can find a list of different apps and games that are made specifically for dementia patients.