Black humor, obscene jokes and daily viewing serials like “Mr. Bean” may indicate not a cynical person, but the early signs of dementia, the researchers found.
The study of dementia and in particular Alzheimer’s disease various research centers around the world today pays great attention. Significant progress has been made in the diagnosis of disease and the study of the mechanism of its origin, there are new drugs,
if you are not able to reverse, or at least slow the progression of the disease.
As for the early diagnosis of the disease in this region, scientists are trying unsuccessfully to identify the external features that are capable to point out the risk of a disease or predisposition to it long before the existence of serious syndromes. Thus, it became known that certain changes in the everyday speech of man can see the signs of approaching illness. On the basis of this recently, scientists have shown that the first signs of dementia were US President Ronald Reagan, even when he was in the White House.
Scientists from University College London in search of new harbingers of disease Alzheimer decided to pay attention to how changes over time is another noticeable all the features of human communication – his sense of humor.
To do this, researchers led by Camille Clarke in two years was observed in 48 patients of a psychiatric clinic, who was diagnosed with the so-called frontotemporal dementia. This type of dementia often comes to 65 years. Doctors know that a distinctive feature of this disease are behavioral and emotional disorders, and after declining intelligence and memory.
For example, a patient at the beginning of the disease may become passive, to avoid others, communicating with them becomes a burden to him. It is depleted, people often stumbles in the conversation, can not find the words.
Another hallmark of the syndrome of dementia becomes a decrease of self-criticism, the patient can disregard the rules of propriety, it may appear inappropriate playfulness.
After the clinical examination of patients, scientists conducted a survey of their friends and relatives for the evolution of a sense of humor, the main criterion in the selection of the respondents had a long acquaintance with the patient for at least 15 years.
A similar study was conducted in relation to a control group of people the same age without diagnosed mental disorders. Thus, the relatives were asked how often in the daily life of people laughing at situations that others do not seem ridiculous how much time each day spent watching comedies and comic magazines before diagnosis of the disease and after.
Comedy were divided into categories – farcical and vulgar (“Mr. Bean” and “The Benny Hill Show”), satirical (“Yes Minister”) and the absurd (“Monty Python»).
Most of the respondents painted a similar picture of the evolution senses humor their spouses or parents who was later diagnosed with “dementia”. Increasingly, their relatives laughed at is not funny events (for example, when showing on the television reports about natural disasters, catastrophes or when the witness how husband accidentally hit herself).
The majority of respondents indicated that at the time of diagnosis of the disease their relatives began to prefer the vulgar comedy, which was not observed in the control group.
It turned out that these changes began to take place 13 years before the onset of typical symptoms of dementia. “This is a very noticeable change – absolutely unacceptable joke beyond the borders of inappropriate humor. For example, one man laughed when his wife badly burnt, “- said Clark, author of the study published in the journal Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease .
Many of the relatives mentioned that people at all they disappeared once mature and developed sense of humor, and in its place remained only chuckle when viewing vulgar comedies and dirty jokes.
According to Dr Simon Ridley, a British researcher of Alzheimer’s disease, a similar change of sense of humor in people should pay attention to themselves and their families lead to early treatment to doctors. “Although memory loss – the first thing that comes to mind when we hear about dementia, this study emphasizes the importance of a variety of other symptoms that affect our daily life and relationships,” – he said.
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