Hi I'm Mark Derbyshire and I am the Dementia Champion For Gloucester Housing Support and GreenSquare.
Over the next few weeks I will be out on a few lunch and learns at the various GreenSquare offices to raise awareness on the subject via a presentation and Q and A session afterwards
On Tuesday the 27th of September I will be at Chedworth House between 12pm and 1:30pm in Meeting Room 1.
On Tuesday the 4th of October I will be at Methuen Park in Chippenham between 12pm and 1:30pm in Meeting Rooms 1 and 2.
On Thursday the 6th of October I will be at the Barns Road site in Oxford between 12pm and 1:30pm in Meeting Room 1.
If you would like to attend these sessions then please contact Leanne Mussard and check for availability.
Over the coming months, I will be posting updates on this site regarding the different forms of dementia, which areas of the brain that they affect and what we can do to help people living with dementia.
I look forward to speaking to a lot of you soon, getting to know you better and answering your questions on the subject.
To start the blog I will be discussing the various areas of the brain and how they are affected by dementia.
The 4 areas or lobes as they are known are the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe and temporal lobe.
The frontal lobe is involved with making decisions, problem solving, emotions and personality. Normally when damage occurs to this part of the brain, nerve cells die and the lobe shrinks. The most obvious signs of this are usually personality and behavioural changes. For instance, someone who was patient and peaceful might become irritable and violent. This form of dementia is often related to frontotemporal dementia and is sometimes known as Pick's Disease. For more information follow this link https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=167.
The second part of the brain that we will look at is the parietal lobe and this is the part of the brain that controls doing things and spatial awareness. Damage to the parietal lobe can cause Gerstmann's Syndrome. This includes left/right confusion, difficulty with writing (agraphia) and difficulty with mathematics (acalculia). It can also produce disorders of language (aphasia) and the inability to perceive objects normally (agnosia). Follow this link to find more about the parietal lobe brainmadesimple.com/parietal-lobe.html
The third area of the brain is the occipital lobe which controls vision, shape movement and how we see and interpret the world. One of the most common forms of occipital lobe damage is Lewy Body dementia which can produce hallucinations for the person living with this form of dementia. The hallucinations often present as animals or pets but appear as real to the person with Lewy Body's as someone who is actually stood there.
There is often confusion with discriminating between different textures and an inability to perceive depth and shade. There will often be problems with perceiving certain colours such as blue, purple and green. This is quite common for people living with Vascular Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease. For more information about the occipital lobe follow this link. https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=114
Finally we arrive at the temporal lobe. The temporal lobe is concerned with facts and feelings. Damage to the temporal lobe can present as problems recalling short term memories (hippocampus) and is commonly associated with Alzheimer's Disease.
If affecting the amygdala, then this can cause depression and anxiety where there may have been none before. This is quite common with all forms of dementia but again is usually more common with Alzheimer's Disease.
For more information follow this link. brainmadesimple.com/temporal-lobe.html
In the next blog, I will be discussing the 5 most common forms of dementia, I look forward to chatting with you all then,
