People with dementia have cognitive impairment and a decline in mental ability which at times is severe enough to interfere with their daily life.
Symptoms of dementia can vary from person to person. A person with dementia may exhibit at least two of the following core impairments:
- Loss of cognitive skill
- Memory loss
- Visual impairment
- Lack of communication (verbal or non-verbal)
- Difficulty in planning or solving problems
- Unable to apply focus or pay attention
- Frequent change in mood
- Difficulty in doing familiar tasks
To diagnose dementia, the doctor needs to recognize the pattern of the loss of skills. No single test can diagnose the disorder, so doctors run a number of tests to identify the problem. Some of the tests are:
- Cognitive and neuropsychological tests
- Neurological evaluation
- Brain scans (CT or MRI. & PET scans)
- Laboratory tests (blood & spinal fluid)
- Psychiatric evaluation (to determine depression)
Some of the symptoms of dementia are progressive that worsen with time. If a person shows signs of memory difficulties or changes in cognitive skills, it is advisable to visit the nearest clinic. With the help of professional evaluation, the doctors may detect a treatable condition. Early diagnosis helps the person to get the maximum benefit from available treatments, like cell therapy, for curing dementia.
For dementia, there is no complete cure but, with treatment with stem cells, progression can be stalled. This can bring temporarily improvement in the symptoms.
Stem cell treatments target curing dementia by replacing the damaged brain cells with healthy stem cells to create new healthy brain cells. Transplant done using autologous stem cells derived from the patient’s own bone marrow have fewer chances of tissue rejection.
At the neurogen hospital, the doctor complete cell treatment in 3 simple steps.
- Extraction of the marrow
- Treatment and separation of stem cells from the marrow
- Infusion of healthy cells
Initially, the bone marrow is extracted from the patient’s own hip bone with an aspiration needle attached to an injection. Around 80 ml to 120 ml of marrow tissue is removed and sent to the laboratory. Using the density gradient centrifugation procedure, the marrow is filtered to retrieve the healthy stem cells from the marrow tissue. The filtered stem cells are diluted in CSF and infused into the spinal area using an epidural needle attached to the intrathecal injection. Once in the body, the infused stem cells migrate to the damaged brain area to activate their healing process.
The healthy stem cells replace the dead and damaged cells and in the process help the brain to regain its plasticity. Curing dementia with stem cells is a new way to improve both motor and cognitive impairments in a person.
