Alcohol Related Dementia (ARD)
Excessive alcohol consumption leads to numerous health problems such as liver damage, stomach issues, impaired cognitive function, insomnia after drinking alcohol, dizziness, and more. If alcoholic beverages are consumed in large quantities over a relatively short period of times, most health problems can be cured relatively easily using special treatment and by quitting drinking. However, if one abuses alcohol throughout many years, this doesn’t only lead to liver cirrhosis, but also a condition called alcoholic dementia. The health condition usually results in improper neurological functioning and serious cognitive issues.
Alcohol dementia can appear to people of all ages, regardless of gender, height or body type. It can result from consuming alcoholic beverages in great quantities, including beer, wine, liquor, spirits, and more. Drinking small amounts of alcohol doesn’t lead to this dangerous medical condition, so having a few drinks per week is considered to be safe.
Alcohol-induced dementia can be acquired if one gets intoxicated with alcohol regularly. This type of intoxication depletes the nutrients in the body, causes brain damage and seriously affects the function of major organs such as liver, kidneys, pancreas, and more. Each person’s body can handle alcohol intoxication differently, but ultimately too much alcohol can lead to serious health conditions.
It is quite common for certain people to start abusing alcohol and some of the most predisposed persons are teenagers drinking, pregnant women, business professionals, and veterans. Various psychological factors also contribute to acquiring alcohol-related dementia as well as how prone is one person to get a mental illness. If one starts to abuse alcohol regularly (to get rid of stress or avoid facing life issues), this is a surefire path towards dangerous alcohol-related health problems, including alcoholic dementia. In many cases, alcohol abusers try to rationalize bad drinking habits and don’t try to stop drinking because, at first glance, they appear to function properly and have normal lives. However, increasing the dose of alcohol is very easy, and this can lead to major health problems.
Key Factor to Alcoholic Dementia
The alcoholic dementia symptoms are varied, and this health condition can be influenced by two important factors such as Wernicke’s encephalopathy and the Korsakoff syndrome.
Wernicke’s encephalopathy
Wernicke’s encephalopathy is a health condition encountered in patients who lack a certain substance called thiamine. The thiamine deficiency is usually caused by excessive drinking as well as vomiting. If one abuses alcohol regularly, the body’s thiamine stores will get depleted fast.
Korsakoff syndrome
The Korsakoff syndrome is a special type of condition which translates through frequent episodes of depression, confusion, inability to speak normally, memory problems, and others. Alcohol and dementia are strictly related in this case because too much alcohol prevents normal neurological functioning which leads to dementia, a serious brain condition that can affect people of all ages who abuse alcohol.
Symptoms of alcohol dementia
There are several symptoms which can be easily identified and might indicate that one suffers from this health problem. For example, headaches, frequent anger episodes, mood swings, slurred speech as well as memory gaps are serious signs of alcoholic dementia. Having regular alcohol blackout symptoms while drinking is also dangerous to the human brain and acts as a contributing factor to this condition.
Elderly alcoholic dementia is a closely-related condition which affects elderly people, and the health effects of alcohol are worse when coupled with other neurological illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease. This combination of brain issues might be incurable and are known as alcohol-induced psychosis.
The Start and Progression of Alcoholic Dementia
Dementia caused by alcoholism can appear to people of all ages, and it usually starts as a result of abusing alcohol regularly for many years. Alcohol addicts develop the Wernicke’s encephalopathy first, and then this causes the Korsakoff syndrome. Ultimately, the serious memory problems caused by Korsakoff syndrome will lead to alcoholic dementia. The process takes time to develop, but it can be an incurable disease. The Wernicke’s encephalopathy appears because heavy drinkers lose thiamine from the body as a result of frequent and long binge drinking episodes. Most alcohol addicts do not replenish this vital substance (either through diet or supplements), and as a result, alcoholic dementia can appear.