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Question on high blood pressure and memory

What are the long term effects of high blood pressure? Is your memory effected?
(25 Aug 2007)

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is one of the most common ailments prevalent in individuals over the age of 35. It is also known to affect 6% of all teenagers and 1% of all children. The fact that condition will, during its developmental phase, show no symptoms makes it hard to diagnose or for the affected individual to have even an inkling that there is a problem within his/her seemingly healthy body.


When the condition reaches its advanced stages, the patient will start to experience fatigue, dizziness, palpitations of the heart and nosebleeds. Extreme cases of the condition may lead to blurred vision, severe headaches in the morning, difficulty in breathing as well as an increase in certain levels of the composition of urea. Hypertension is caused by an increased amount of tension in the walls of the blood vessels, a hardening of blood vessels due to arteriosclerosis, an unhealthy diet consisting of high levels of fat and salt, obesity, a lack of exercise, kidney failure and stress in professional or personal life.

With regards to the loss of memory, hypertension is known to cause damage to blood vessels as a result of a build up inside the blood vessels. When the blood vessel is blocked to the extent that no blood is able to ass through, it could result in the slow death of the organ or part of the organ that does not receive its supply of oxygen. If the affected blood vessel is one that travels to the brain, especially the area of the brain that houses thoughts, judgments and memory, these abilities may be significantly diminished. The brain requires a very high amount of blood to flow through it, about one quart every minute, in order to enable it to carry out some basic functions.

Some of the most common methods to help a person adapt their lifestyle to be able to cope with the condition include significantly reducing the amount of salt that one consumes, increasing the amount of exercise and physical activity performed, losing a substantial amount of weight as well as trying a few stress reduction techniques such as yoga or meditation. Increasing your intake of Omega-3 fatty acids that are present in fish oil will help reduce the blood pressure in your system. Treating yourself to a hot foot or leg bath with a hot compress placed over your chest for about 10 minutes is also known to be quite beneficial.
answered by M W on 21 Apr 2010, 6:54:05

 

Research reveals a short memory lapse in individuals with hypertension. Majority of the mental tasks performed by hypertensives are not the same as normotensive individuals. Lack of proper attention is displayed.
answered by r k on 31 Aug 2007, 1:36:19

 

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