Dementia is reaching epidemic proportions in Australia with more than 150,000 Australians already suffering moderate to severe symptoms and with 50 new cases being diagnosed each day.

For our mental health or mental fitness, we need to focus upon what are the normal expectations of a healthy brain and body. We also need to become aware of any mild symptoms of irregularity that alert us to the need to cultivate our emotions and thoughts that affect our behaviour and interfere with our mental health and welfare.

Some of the well acknowledged symptoms of dementia sometimes found in Alzheimer’s
demonstrate a lack of the important mental qualities we value and have considered as integral to our idea of mental fitness. Some of these include the following -

Chronic fatigue
Extreme shyness or introvert behaviour or avoidance of company
Anger and aggressive feelings
Loss of concentration 
Poor memory
Confusion
Anxiety, stress and exaggerated fears
Lack of self-confidence
Depression or unhappiness

Many of these symptoms are common both in cases of depression as well as in senility problems such as dementia.

There are many different approaches to sufferers of both these diseases but rather than trying to  consider rectifying future problems through drugs, it is better to first apply self help methods of prevention. It is an interesting study and will strengthen the chances that your future picture of an eventual, natural decline into old age will occur rather than last days spent in the mental wilderness and loneliness of either dementia or depressed states of mind and spirit.