{"id":24617,"date":"2020-07-02T06:27:03","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T06:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=24617"},"modified":"2020-07-02T06:33:56","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T06:33:56","slug":"causes-of-mental-confusion-beyond-60-by-arnaldo-liechtenstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=24617","title":{"rendered":"CAUSES OF MENTAL CONFUSION BEYOND 60 By Arnaldo Liechtenstein"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=19271&amp;ad_type=81&amp;rl=1800\" width=\"336\" height=\"280\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Whenever I teach clinical medicine to students in the fourth year of medicine, I ask the following question:<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">What are the causes of mental confusion in the elderly?<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Some offer: &#8220;Tumors in the head&#8221;.\u00a0 I answer: No!<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Others suggest: &#8220;Early symptoms of Alzheimer&#8217;s&#8221;.\u00a0 I answer again: No!<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">With each rejection of their answers, their responses dry up.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">And they are even more open-mouthed when I list the three most common causes:<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0&#8211; uncontrolled<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0&#8211;\u00a0 diabetes;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&#8211; urinary infection;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&#8211; dehydration<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">It may sound like a joke, but it isn&#8217;t.\u00a0 People over 60 constantly stop feeling thirsty and consequently stop drinking fluids.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">When no one is around to remind them to drink fluids, they quickly dehydrate.\u00a0 Dehydration is severe and affects the entire body.\u00a0 It may cause abrupt mental confusion, a drop in blood pressure, increased heart palpitations,<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">angina (chest pain), coma and even death.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">*This habit of forgetting to drink fluids begins at age 60, when we have just over 50% of the water we should have in our bodies.\u00a0 People over 60 have a lower water reserve. This is part of the natural aging process.*<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">But there are more complications. Although they are dehydrated, they don&#8217;t feel like drinking water, because their internal balance mechanisms don&#8217;t work very well.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">*Conclusion:*<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">People over 60 years old dehydrate easily, not only because they have a smaller water supply, but also because they do not feel the lack of water in the body.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Although people over 60 may look healthy, the performance of reactions and chemical functions can damage their entire body.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">So here are two alerts:<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0 1) *Get into the habit of drinking liquids*.\u00a0 Liquids include water, juices, teas, coconut water, milk, soups,and water-rich fruits, such as watermelon, melon, peaches and pineapple;\u00a0 Orange and tangerine also work.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">*The important thing is that, every two hours, you must drink some liquid.\u00a0 Remember this!*<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">2) Alert for family members: constantly offer fluids to people over 60.\u00a0 At the same time, observe them.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">If you realize that they are rejecting liquids and, from one day to the next, they are irritable, breathless or display a lack of attention, these are almost certainly recurrent symptoms of dehydration.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0Arnaldo Liechtenstein (46), physician, is a general practitioner at Hospital das Cl\u00ednicas and a collaborating professor in the Department of Clinical Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP).<\/div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=19271&amp;ad_type=81&amp;rl=1800\" width=\"336\" height=\"280\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whenever I teach clinical medicine to students in the fourth year of medicine, I ask the following question: What are the causes of mental confusion in the elderly? Some offer: &#8220;Tumors in the head&#8221;.\u00a0 I answer: No! Others suggest: &#8220;Early symptoms of Alzheimer&#8217;s&#8221;.\u00a0 I answer again: No! With each rejection of their answers, their responses [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-living"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/watermelon.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-6p3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24617"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24621,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24617\/revisions\/24621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}