Page 17 - Changes and Challenges

Dementia
Changes and Challenges

How Our Senses Might Be Affected.
As a general observation, there is little direct impact on our “physical” senses.
That is to say, the cells and mechanisms that “sense” our environment, such
as touch receptors, are largely intact and function as they did. The problems
occur in the brain were this sensory information is processed and interpreted.
As an example, let’s consider our sense of hearing. We experience much of
our world though this sense and it plays a big part in communication.

Most people are familiar with the outer, middle and inner ear (Figure 5) but
are unfamiliar with how the inner ear or cochlea connects to the brain via the
auditory nerves (Figure 6).

The sound information from the cochlea travels via the auditory nerves to the

Figure 5: Sense of Hearing - The Outer, Middle and Inner Ear.

cochlear nucleus in the brainstem. From there, the signals travel to the
inferior colliculus in the midbrain. The inferior colliculus integrates auditory
input with limited input from other parts of the brain and is involved in
subconscious reflexes such as the auditory startle response.

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