Alcohol Induced Dementia: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment Options

DT is a severe form of sudden alcohol withdrawal that’s a medical emergency. All of the information gathered during the diagnostic process will also help them rule out other types of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease or vascular dementia. Table 2 shows that DT patients exhibited significantly higher all-cause and natural cause SMRs (9.7 and 8.6 respectively) compared to both AD and AIP patients. DT patients differed from AD patients in all categories of natural and unnatural causes of death, except for respiratory disease and cancer. AIP patients, however, did not show any significant differences in causes of death compared to AD patients when examining SMRs. It is noteworthy that a somewhat larger proportion of AIP patients (6.2%) lacked a recorded cause of death, compared to AD (2.4%) and DT (1.8%) patients (data not shown in table).

How is alcohol-related dementia treated?

If there is a deficiency of thiamine, brain cells do not produce enough energy to function properly. People with severe alcohol use disorder also tend to have nutritional deficiencies from a poor diet and irregular eating habits. Treatment typically involves the use of thiamine supplements in oral or injected forms. They may also need to live in assisted living housing if their symptoms are severe. A doctor may consider other causes of the symptoms if the person does not show any signs of improvement.

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For example, if the person stops drinking alcohol, takes high doses of thiamine and starts eating a balanced diet. However, if the person keeps drinking alcohol and doesn’t eat well, alcohol-related ‘dementia’ is very likely to get worse. It can be difficult to get an assessment, as some GPs will insist that the person has stopped drinking for several weeks before they can assess the person’s memory. Some experts think that a person can be assessed for alcohol-related ‘dementia’ while they are still drinking too much, as long as they aren’t intoxicated at the time of the assessment.

Alcohol-related ‘dementia’ and balance

Going to meetings can hold you accountable for quitting drinking and improving your health. The most distinguishing symptom is confabulation (fabrication) where the person makes up detailed, believable stories about experiences or situations to cover gaps in memory. Alcohol-related dementia can cause problems with memory, learning, judgment, and other cognitive skills. Continued consumption of alcohol can cause symptoms to progress and get worse. Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome typically presents with three main areas of symptoms.

Assessment and Diagnosis for Alcohol-Related Dementia

• Some forms of dementia can cause changes in a person’s behaviour and difficulties in how they control their impulses, emotions and actions.
• For example, if the person stops drinking alcohol, takes high doses of thiamine and starts eating a balanced diet.
• Alcohol dementia patients may experience hallucination which is a perception in the absence of external stimulus, that has qualities of real perception.

Find out about Alcohol-related ‘dementia’ including symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, support and rehabilitation. It isn’t easy to cope with alcohol-related dementia, but there are resources that can help. You may also choose to share your diagnosis with supportive family and friends—you don’t have to navigate your condition alone. The effects of alcohol-related dementia may be reversible, depending on your circumstances. This makes alcohol-related dementia easy to hide for some people, and difficult to diagnose at times. Thiamine works in the brain by helping brain cells produce energy from sugar.

Treating Alcohol Dementia With Diet:

• Experts recommend that screeners check anyone with memory loss for alcohol use.
• Most people with alcohol-related ‘dementia’ will need to stay in hospital for this.
• Moreover, the liver enzymes in people with long-term alcohol abuse, may be high.

Alcohol is a toxin that can damage the brain cells responsible for cognitive function. Over time, this damage can accumulate and lead to significant cognitive impairment. Treating alcohol dementia with diet could also be considered as a major treatment. You must limit your alcohol intake and begin to eat a well-balanced diet.

By limiting or eliminating alcohol intake, individuals can mitigate the damaging effects of alcohol on the brain. Diagnosing alcoholic dementia involves a comprehensive evaluation of the individual’s medical can alcohol cause dementia history, symptoms, and cognitive functioning. The healthcare provider will typically conduct a series of assessments to assess the extent of cognitive impairment and determine the underlying cause. The risk of developing alcoholic dementia is directly related to the duration and intensity of alcohol abuse. Individuals who engage in long-term heavy drinking are at a significantly higher risk of developing cognitive impairments and dementia.

Treatment Options for Alcohol Misuse & Addiction

You may also have a higher risk of traumatic brain injuries if you have alcohol-related dementia. Unsafe drinking increases your risk of falls, car accidents and other head injuries. This can make you progress through stages of alcohol-related dementia faster. Alcohol-related dementia usually affects people between the ages of 40 and 50 who have been drinking heavily for years. But you can develop alcohol-related dementia at any age if you’re drinking more alcohol than is safe.

Alcohol causes a variety of short-term changes to the brain, while alcohol abuse over time can cause lasting or even permanent damage. Paralysis and numbness in limbs and digits can also be related to alcohol-induced dementia, when brain cells responsible for nerve function are damaged. Those effects are temporary, though, and once the alcohol leaves the system, things generally return to normal. But long-term, steady drinking actually alters the brain’s neurons, causing brain cells to shrink. Ideally, people wouldn’t want to develop any of these conditions, she added, so the research team wanted to find shared risk factors so people can essentially achieve multiple goals using the same tools. While people born in the 1950’s could expect to live an average of 69 years, people born in the 2010’s can anticipate an additional decade of lifespan.

They may forget appointments or conversations and have trouble remembering recent events. While they may heroin addiction still be able to carry out daily activities independently, they may begin to struggle with tasks that require complex problem-solving or decision-making. It is highly essential for you to quit alcohol, if you have alcohol dementia. If the brain damage is mild in case of the dementia, limiting alcohol consumption can actually help you mend up a good life in recovery. However, those who have suffered a permanent damage to the brain in alcohol dementia, it is difficult to recover completely, however their life would improve greatly once they quit alcohol. A medication named Memantine that is used to treat Alzheimer’s disease, is also a medication that is used to treat alcoholism and brain damage.