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Dementia. What If They’re Just… Leaving?

One of the most troublesome medical issues of today is the issue of dementia. Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other debilitating brain affecting diseases ride high in the public conscious, carrying with them a slow but unavoidable message of gloom and doom, saying in unmistakable words that the clock ticks for us all.
However, our goal is to improve quality of life wherever possible, and that means beating back the effects time however we can. So we search for a cure for dementia despite the impossibility of it (it’s a matter of decayed brain matter that is impossible to replace on account of the gene proteins being stretched too thin. Pills won’t fix that).
Along the way, many professionals have sought out the causes and factors present in these various illnesses, so as to better teach others to avoid them.
Loneliness is, rather unsurprisingly, turning out to be a major factor, able to increase the risk for dementia by a whopping forty two percent. And not loneliness from lack of friends either. This particular risk is modified by marriage, real marriage. Lifelong partnerships with the person you love and goals bigger than either of you. Not the garbage that you can’t stop hearing about from Hollywood and the press. Though its presence sort of explains why they’re all such wonderful people around there.
It has been known for quite some time that when people want to see the people that they are close to, they go visit them. And when visiting is no longer possible, they join them in spirit, wherever they may be. There are those, of course, who mock this notion, being entirely unable to comprehend this world as anything more than a block of meat, but the rest of us understand it.
So, what if a person with dementia is quite simply someone who isn’t here anymore? Meaning, what if it isn’t the dementia that drives them away, but their leaving is what causes the dementia to occur? A theory without evidence, certainly, but there is enough data to make it worth looking into. People with dementia who are given a new reason to live, does the brain matter regenerate?
Holding peoples interest has proven to slow the advance of dementia. Perhaps making them want to stay here can turn it back.