Neurodegenerative Disease Symptoms

Degenerative nerve diseases have affected millions of people around the world. These diseases majorly affect your body’s activities like movement, balance, breathing, and heart function. A degenerative disease occurs when nerve cells in your brain or peripheral nervous system stop functioning properly and ultimately stop functioning. The risk of having one’s mental health affected by these diseases is increasing every day. The causes of such diseases can vary. Sometimes, the cause can be a medical condition like alcoholism, a tumor, or a stroke. Others might include toxins, chemicals, and viruses. The ultimate result of such disorders can be the progressive degeneration or death of a person’s nerve cells. The diseases are diverse in their pathophysiology. Some examples of such disorders include:

  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • Parkinson’s disease
  • Prion disease
  • Motor neuron disease
  • Huntington’s disease
  • Spinocerebellar ataxia
  • Spinal muscular atrophy

Neurodegenerative Disease Symptoms

These diseases can lead to permanent damage to one’s nervous system. Symptoms start to get worse as the disease continues to progress. Neurodegenerative diseases can cause your brain and the nerves to get damaged over time and lead to changes in your personality, mood, and mental health. These diseases develop as you grow old and slowly impair your memory and thought process. Some of the most common symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases include:

  • Memory loss
  • Forgetfulness
  • Apathy
  • Anxiety
  • Agitation
  • Disinhibition
  • Changes in mood

Memory Loss

Memory loss can be experienced by anyone, and it tends to increase with the age of a person. However, memory loss due to a neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer’s disease can be seriously damaging to one’s health. Neurodegenerative disease can lead to impairment of memory and affect the reasoning, communication ability, and everyday cognitive functions of a person. People with such diseases get confused and disoriented quickly. Some other symptoms include judgment, language, and thinking ability disturbance. There are several conditions related to such diseases that affect memory.

Forgetfulness

Being affected by a neurodegenerative disease, a person can have his/her memory affected due to forgetfulness. Some common situations when having such diseases include forgetting recent conversations, repetitive questions, and getting lost in familiar places. The person experiences hallucinations, memory difficulties, delusions, and impaired judgment. Forgetfulness and memory loss due to such diseases can be serious damage to one’s health. So, it’s important to consult someone specialized in the field to get the correct diagnosis and treatment for a person with such a mental illness.

Apathy

Apathy is known to be the lack of interest in life activities and interactions due to a degenerative disease a person is suffering from. It affects a person’s ability to maintain relationships interact with people and enjoy life. People with apathy experience a decrease in motivation, impaired behavioral thinking and emotional changes, badly affected quality of life, and continuous changes in behavior. Apathy is the constellation of cognitive and behavioral symptoms like emotional blunting, lack of motivation, ad lack of interest. Apathy is one of the most common symptoms of neurodegenerative disease and is also quite distressing for the person affected. A person experiencing apathy may feel a lack of passion and disturbing daily routine activities. Apathy treatments are dependent on the underlying cause, and proper diagnosis and medications can help restore your interest in life.

Anxiety

Anxiety is the natural response of one’s body to stress and depression. It is when you feel fear or apprehension about what is coming next. One may experience anxiety when affected by a degenerative disease as it can be extreme and interfere with your life and daily activities. Usually, feelings of anxiety can come and go, but in such extreme cases, it may prevent you from performing daily life activities and keep getting worse with time. A person experiencing from anxiety may suffer from an increased heart rate, rapid breathing, restlessness, difficulty in sleeping and inability to concentrate. Once you’ve been diagnosed with the disease, you should consult a specialized mental healthcare service provider to explore the best feasible options for the treatment.

Agitation

Agitation is the feeling of tension, restlessness, and annoyance experienced by a person affected by degenerative disease. People with agitation may have problems focusing or communicating. One can have angry outbursts and or difficulty moving. The disease can be associated with symptoms like worry, depression, anger, tension, and grief. Agitation is the negative emotion a person feels when under stress when doing daily activities. Symptoms of agitation usually occur in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Changes in environment and residence can cause agitation and the way a person reacts to different situations. Agitation can cause one to feel uneasy, have little patience, nervousness, crankiness, and too much excitement.

Disinhibition

The inhibition loss is the inability to withhold a proponent response or suppress an inappropriate behavior. It can refer to socially inappropriate talks and behaviors. Disinhibition can involve a variety of behaviors like impulsivity, carelessness, risk-taking, and insensitivity to punishment. A decrease in inhibition has been observed in people with neurodegenerative diseases. The behavioral disinhibition increases the risk of problematic interaction with parents, peers, and teachers that leads to a disturbing daily routine of a person suffering from a neurodegenerative disease.

Changes in Mood

Apparently, sad mood is often seen in all major depressive disorders. People suffering from neurodegenerative disorders may feel mood changes all the time and have an absence of interest in terms of social, emotional, spiritual, and physical life activities. It affects a person’s overall health. The mood disorder can alter the way a person behaves or react to certain situations. Some of the most common experiences that a person with a mood disorder can go through include feeling sad most of the time, feeling a lack of energy, feeling hopeless, losing appetite, gaining weight, sleeping a lot, or having frequent thoughts about death or suicide. The doctors will conduct a proper diagnosis to find out the actual cause of such major changes in one’s behavior and plan a proper treatment and medication management to make sure that you restore your mental health.