Parkinson’s Dementia Aggression

Parkinson’s Dementia Aggression is the aggression stemming from Parkinson’s disease Dementia that impairs thought processes, mental functions, and memory. Though Parkinson’s Disease is known to be a progressive disease of the nervous system that affects a person’s mobility and ability to carry out day-to-day activities, Parkinson’s Disease Dementia can result in severe cognitive decline. PD Dementia reduces the ability of a person to live independently and affects his ability to understand spoken language, memory, and concentration.

Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease Dementia vary from anxiety to irritability and delusions, depression, difficulty in sleeping well, slurred speech, difficulty in absorbing and interpreting visual information, excessive daytime sleepiness, and rapid eye movements, memory changes, paranoia, and visual hallucinations. Diagnosing PD Dementia can be very difficult at times, as there is no single test that can help identify the presence or type of dementia.

 

Let’s look at the following to understand more:

• Can Parkinson’s disease make you aggressive?
• What is aggressive Parkinson’s Disease?
• Can Parkinson’s Dementia be Reversed?
• How is Parkinson’s Disease Dementia different from Alzheimer’s Disease?

Can Parkinson’s disease make you aggressive?

Parkinson’s disease Dementia or PD Dementia can make a patient very aggressive. Parkinson’s Dementia Aggression germinating from Parkinson’s disease Dementia can lead patients to behave erratically, experience sudden anger outbursts, feel constantly irritated, and always be in a state of restlessness. Outbursts are generally in the form of:

• Shouting
• Swearing and
• Name-calling

and patients making physical contact with others engaged in:

• Scratching
• Pushing
• Kicking, and
• Hitting

This sort of aggressive behavior is a common sight in patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s Dementia disease. Besides the Parkinson’s Dementia aggression that PD Dementia is known to create, its symptom pattern is known as postural instability and gait disturbance (PIGD), which includes:

• Freezing in mid-step
• Difficulty initiating movement
• Shuffling
• Problems with balance and
• Falling

What is aggressive Parkinson’s Disease?

As written above, Parkinson’s dementia aggression is that form of Parkinson’s which makes the patient exhibit aggressive behavior. They vent out their aggression either verbally or physically, in the various forms that have been written above. Besides verbal and physical outbursts, PD Dementia patients are also prone to hallucinating caused by the medication administered. Hallucinations in PD Dementia patients primarily occur because of the effects of dopaminergic agents for motor symptoms.

Loss of dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area is one of the likeliest of all neuropathological causes as changes in serotonin and norepinephrine systems are not. For the uninitiated, the ventral tegmental area is the origin of the mesolimbic dopaminergic projection. Plenty of studies have gone into analyzing the cause behind the aggression (at times excessive) in PD Dementia patients. Depression in PD Dementia patients has been identified due to changes in the medial frontal cortex and the anterior cingulate. Akinetic-rigid variants have been found in patients showing signs of major depression.

Can Parkinson’s Dementia be Reversed?

No specific cure has been identified for Parkinson’s Disease Dementia. Rather, treatments have been aimed at reducing the symptoms of dementia and helping the patient maintain a high quality of life. Doctors treating patients of PD Dementia generally prescribe medications such as:

• Antidepressants
• Cholinesterase inhibitors
• Clonazepam and L-dopa

Serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are known to reduce depression symptoms. The ones widely prescribed by doctors include:

• Prozac
• Celexa
• Zoloft and
• Lexapro

Cholinesterase inhibitors help reduce the effects of cognitive decline in people with dementia whereas Clonazepam helps enhance sleep quality. L-dopa helps reduce movement issues caused by PD but runs the risk of making confusion and dementia symptoms worse.

Doctors treating PD Dementia patients may also prescribe antipsychotic drugs but generally do so with caution, the reason being these reduce psychotic episodes but increase Parkinson’s symptoms. The use of these drugs may also cause increased confusion and change in consciousness. For the record, Pimavanserin and Nuplazid have been identified as effective antipsychotic drugs.

How is Parkinson’s Disease Dementia different from Alzheimer’s Disease?

Parkinson’s disease Dementia must not be confused with Alzheimer’s disease. Dementia is a hallmark feature of Alzheimer’s whereas a patient may not necessarily contract Dementia if he happens to contract Parkinson’s. Having mentioned that, Dementia does have a greater social and occupational impact on the functioning of people when it affects someone with Parkinson’s as compared to Alzheimer’s.

This is due to the combination of motor and cognitive impairments. Parkinson’s directly affects problem-solving functions in a person, besides other aspects such as the speed of thinking, memory, and mood. Parkinson’s Dementia Aggression can also be related to Lewy bodies, where sticky clumps of protein are found in the nerve cells of people diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

Finally, it must be known to all those associated with Parkinson’s in any capacity, whether be it a patient or a caregiver, that majority of people with Parkinson’s may experience some of the other forms of cognitive impairment over time. Though cases vary from person to person, the development of Dementia in those diagnosed with Parkinson’s cannot be predicted. To put it in numbers, 30 percent of people with Parkinson’s never develop dementia as a part of their progression.