Page 21 - Changes and Challenges

Dementia
Changes and Challenges
hearing, touch, taste and smell. This is a simplified view. Some of our senses
can be broken down into sperate but related senses. For example, consider
our sense of touch, it can be separated into several different sense areas, such
a pressure, pain and heat.
We are all aware that some other animals sometimes have can sense things
we cannot or use their senses in ways we don’t normally. To illustrate what I
mean by this consider the following examples. Sharks and many marine
creatures can sense electric fields. Many insects and birds can sense light in
the ultraviolet band. Elephants can ‘hear’ infrasonic sounds with their feet.
Birds can sense the Earth’s magnetic field and use it for navigation and Bats
can use ultrasonic sound to ‘see’ the world (echo location). This list could be
expanded to fill several books. Given this “extra-sensory” concept our human
senses might more complex than you first thought.

The following list separates out our “common” senses into several functional
areas that better define them and will better enable us to understand some of
the impacts of dementia. It is important to realise that in order to make
‘sense’ of the world, the input from these senses is interpreted and combines
in different regions of the brain, and this is often were our problems lie. See
the section, To Make Sense, It’s Not Just One Sense! (on page 35).

Sight:
What we see with our eyes. Shape, colour etc.
Taste:
We taste mainly with our tongue, but taste-buds extend beyond our mouth.
We are familiar sweet, salty, sour, and bitter tastes. Umami is a fifth taste only
identified recently.

Touch:
This is distinct from pressure, temperature, pain, and even itch sensors. We
think of our skin being our main organ of touch. Touch implies contact.

Pressure:
Obvious but hard to explain. If you like pressure begins to quantify the force of
touch, but it may not involve a physical contact.

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