Dementia is a challenging condition that affects millions of people worldwide.
While memory loss is often the focus when discussing dementia, researchers are highlighting another critical aspect of the disease: difficulties in recognizing emotions in social situations.
Emotions and Dementia
Researchers from UNSW Sydney’s Center for Healthy Brain Aging (CHeBA) and the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behavior, and Development at Western Sydney University are shedding light on the importance of understanding emotional responses in individuals with dementia.
Their perspective paper, published in Frontiers of Psychiatry, emphasizes that while many people with dementia can identify basic emotions like happiness, sadness, surprise, and fear, they struggle with recognizing other emotions like disgust or anger in facial expressions, sarcasm, and humor in conversations.
Dr. Suraj Samtani, the lead author and a social health expert, explains that assessing social cognition in older adults with dementia can greatly improve early intervention and treatment.
It can also help identify different pathways for dementia types, such as frontotemporal dementia, which often presents with difficulties in social cognition as an early sign.
Social Cognition and Dementia
Social cognition, as Dr. Samtani describes it, is our ability to recognize emotions, social cues, inhibit inappropriate behavior, and act appropriately in social situations.
This aspect of cognition is vital for our functioning as social beings. It includes understanding other people’s mental states and being able to empathize and respond to their emotions.
Deficits in social cognition are common in mild cognitive impairment and dementia and can manifest through various behaviors, such as difficulty with eye contact, rudeness, or failure to pick up on social cues during conversations.
Routine assessments of social cognition in individuals with dementia can lead to timely and appropriate interventions that improve social functioning and overall social health.
Moreover, social cognitive skills are closely linked to the maintenance of social relationships, which can help combat social isolation—a known modifiable risk factor for dementia.
Challenges in Assessing Social Cognition
While recognizing the importance of assessing social cognition in dementia, the paper acknowledges that there is currently no standard or widely accepted approach for measuring these skills.
Many existing measures have not been rigorously developed or validated with individuals experiencing cognitive changes, especially in the context of social behavior.
The lack of measurement for skills such as eye contact, asking open-ended questions, using humor, understanding puns, and sustaining conversations represents a gap in the dementia diagnosis process.
Future Directions
Internationally acclaimed leaders in aging brain research and co-directors of CHeBA, Professor Henry Brodaty and Professor Perminder Sachdev, emphasize the need for further research to develop effective measurements of social cognition that are practical for clinical use.
Addressing this gap could lead to more comprehensive assessments and better support for individuals living with dementia.
In summary, dementia is not just about memory loss. Understanding and addressing difficulties in recognizing emotions and social cues are crucial steps in improving the lives of those affected by this challenging condition.
It’s time to broaden our perspective on dementia and develop tools to assess and support social cognition in individuals living with the disease.
If you care about dementia, please read studies about low choline intake linked to higher dementia risk, and how eating nuts can affect your cognitive ability.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies that blueberry supplements may prevent cognitive decline, and results showing higher magnesium intake could help benefit brain health.
The research findings can be found in Frontiers in Psychiatry.
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