Treatment of People with Dementia: Involuntary Movement

Running head: DEMENTIA CARE
DEMENTIA CARE
Name of Student
Name of University
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1DEMENTIA CARE
TREATMENT OF PEOPLE WITH DEMENTIA (WEEK 2, INVOLUNTARY
MOVEMENT)
Dementia leads to progressive cognitive degeneration which interferes with the
subject’s functional independence (Chertkow, et al. 2013). Dementia symptoms are
progressive and persistent. Patients with dementia suffer from changes in cognition,
movement, sleep pattern and behavior. Dementia’s clinical presentation of dementia is often
individualistic – the cognitive deficits can express as memory loss, language and
communication impairments, agnosia (unable to recognize known objects), an impaired
execution function (judgment, reasoning, planning), apraxia (unable to perform pre- learned
tasks). Cognitive impairment can result from injury to higher cortex followed by synaptic
damage, inflammation and shift of cerebral metabolism. Lewis body dementia is associated
with movement problems, cognitive fluctuations, impaired rapid eye movement sleep and
management should be symptomatic. Lewy body dementia is a progressing
neurodegenerative disease which occurs due to aging. The disease affects over almost
100,000 Australians. Lewy body dementia causes gradual degeneration of brain structures. It
occurs due to an abnormal build up of alpha-synuclein (a protein) in brain neuronal cells.
These abnormalities spread to specific functional areas of cortex, affecting pattern of
movement, behavior and thinking. Lewy body disease with multiple pathophysiology and
complex pathways manages to manifest three neuro-degenerative disorders such as dementia
with Lewy bodies, Parkinson’s disease, Parkinson's disease dementia ("Dementia Australia |
Lewy Body resources", 2019). This overlap causes a spectrum disease.
Slow movements, shuffled walk, incoordination are chief movement problems
associated by Lewy body dementia (Walker et al., 2015).Managing movement problems
involves managing a person's behavior, calming him down and first changing the
environment to facilitate motor function. Formulating daily routines while using different