Dementia is the gradual decreasing of normal brain functions. It is incurable and it is said that it interfere with one’s normal routines which would result in collapsing of daily living.

Dementia is a common term used to refer symptoms of many number of diseases of the brain.

There are many types of dementia seen around but they all cause problems with memory, language skills, information processing, mental agility, understanding and judgment. It can also cause mental problems like personality changes, anxiety, mood swings and depression. In more worst cases the patient is unable to get up, move or interest to eat or drink.

There are no cure for this but there may are treatments to slow down the progression of some types of dementia and one in three people will show positive to those drugs.

There are many types of dementia seen around the society; about 100 types, but the most common type of all is the Alzheimer’s disease affecting 62% of people having dementia. The number of people having dementia is increasing steadily and it is predicted that it will increase to one million by 2021. This rise in numbers will lead to the advances in public health and medical care which would enable people to live much longer than they used to.

Many people with dementia most of the time have both Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia. It does appear that there are few rare cases where dementia is inherited. The risk factors for this include age, smoking, heavy drinking, poor diet, and lack of exercise.

The main obstacle in finding an effective treatment is that still there is no clear understanding of the disease. The complexity of genes interacting with the disease, lifestyle factors, other environmental influences and blood-brain barrier have made it impossible. And it is found recently that dementia may start even decades before symptoms shown out.

Alzheimer’s geneticists from 145 academic institutions has looked into DNA of 17,000 patients and 37,000 healthy people and they have found some versions of 21 genes which would be more likely to be set of instructions that would develop Alzheimer’s disease. By looking at the function of these genes in the human body; it would allow the researchers to figure out how things go on with Alzheimer’s. They have doubled the number of genes discovered and found out that a very strong pattern is emerging. For Alzheimer’s to cause, they have identified that there is something in the immune response. Also it is been found out that there is some kind of involvement of the way in which the human body deals with cholesterol and the way the brain deals with the big molecules in process of endocytosis.

So now it is the need that research groups to work out on above mentioned areas and to find out what is exactly happening with the genes and then develop treatments which could include drugs, genetic therapies or changes in lifestyle.

It is the idea of the research people that by mapping the genes of the most common ones that is predicted that they would cause Alzheimer’s it would highlight the new biological processes that could advance the understanding of this diseases. The true value will come by identifying the exact genes involved, how they contribute to the disease and how that could be turned to benefits for people living with the disease. These amazing discoveries of genes linked with the Alzheimer’s disease will enable to search for medications for the disease. So researchers out there it’s your turn to proceed with this.

Source: BBC Science