Dementia and Personality Changes Go Hand-in-Hand

Dementia is a progressive health condition that affects millions of people worldwide. It is one of those grim diseases that cause the personality of the patients to change dramatically.

The case of Kenny Sparks

Kenny Sparks, co-owner of a multimillion-dollar business, was a very successful person. However, things started to change for the worse when he was 49.

Kenny Spark’s wife Cheryl recalls that the first noticeable symptom of dementia in Kenny was his constant stumbling over words. Kenny was continuously forgetting what he was saying by the time he reached 50.

Behavioral changes in Kenny included staying quiet for a long period of time and eating more. Kenny and Cheryl have two kids who were in college at the time when the Kenny began to show the symptoms of dementia. Both the kids also noticed the changes in their Dad.

Their son Graham recalls that Kenny, who usually cracked silly jokes, sat for long hours and stared blankly during a family trip. Alexandra, their daughter, also recalls that Kenny, who always ate well, started eating gallons of ice creams.

The discovery

Though the family initially thought Kenny had Alzheimer’s, the findings showed that Kenny had Frontotemporal Dementia. The exact causes of Frontotemporal Dementia are unknown, and the condition is often misunderstood as Alzheimer’s. In America alone, nearly 250,000 adults are suffering from this health condition.

Living with Frontotemporal Dementia

Living and taking care of a dementia patient is tough, a fact that Cheryl acknowledges. It’s been 4 years since Kenny was diagnosed with dementia, and now, he cannot drive a car and requires constant care. In fact, Cheryl had to quit her job to take better care of her husband.

Cheryl accepts there are a lot of aspects of this dilapidating disease that are tough to deal with. She adds what has been really tough for her is to accept the fact that the Kenny she knew is slowly fading away, and what is before her is not the person she married.

Dementia and Personality Changes

Dementia affects the parts of the brain that control reasoning, social awareness, memory, and communication, thus causing noticeable changes in the personality of patients.

According to Dr. Murray Grossman, many patients lose their inhibitions and reasoning. Their lack of control over cognitive functions leads to inappropriate or irrational behavior, such as buying a high-priced car that the family doesn’t require, or putting all of the family’s savings into dubious get-rich-quick schemes. Furthermore, dementia patients have no insight whatsoever about the difficulties they cause to others because of their irrational behavior.

Prevention is better than cure

 Dementia is one of those diseases that have no cure as of now. The condition of dementia patients deteriorates over time, and this disease is indeed a difficult one to live with, for both the patient and the family.

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