As Andrew Sachs loses his four-year battle with vascular dementia, this is how the disease can turn deadly
IT is a disease that's primarily known for causing memory loss and confusion, rather than death.
But the unexpected passing of Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs will no doubt bring the hidden implications of dementia into sharp focus for the thousands of families affected.
The critically-acclaimed TV star passed away in his home, last week, after a secret, four-year battle with the chronic brain disease, which is currently thought to affect 850,000 people across the country.
In fact, the Office for National Statistics recently reported that dementia has overtaken heart disease as the leading cause of death in England and Wales.
During 2015, 61,686 out of 529,655 deaths registered in England and Wales were attributable to the condition. This accounted for nearly 12 per cent of all registered deaths.
Yet, while there's often no cause of death beyond an initial dementia diagnosis, there's scant awareness of the other, little-known risks to a patient's body - and, ultimately, what can kill them.
So what are the associated health concerns with dementia? And what else do we need to know about the fatal condition?
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Dementia is not commonly considered a terminal disease akin to the likes of cancer, but - because it will eventually cause the body to shut down over many years - the end result if ultimately the same.
Typically, the average life expectancy for someone with dementia or Alzheimer's is ten years from diagnosis, but this depends on physical health at the time of detection.
Although it's not clear what Sachs' official cause of death was, the leading trigger in many patients is - perhaps surprisingly - pneumonia.
In fact, according to the Alzheimers Society, it's the main cause of mortality in up to two-thirds of people with the life-shortening illness.
An infection of the lungs caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites, pneumonia is frequently seen in dementia sufferers because their body comes under long-term physical stress and they have difficulty warding off bacterial attacks.
As they struggle to clear their lungs during an infection, the secretions which are normally expelled from the body instead go down into bronchial tubes and cause pneumonia.
But that isn't the only danger.
Because dementia attacks the brain - which controls primary organs such as the heart, as well our memories - blood clots, heart disease and strokes are also a considerable risk.
In part, this is because dementia sufferers often lose their mobility as the disease progresses, which causes circulatory problems.
In addition to this, side-effects from medications can also contribute, which helps make circulatory system diseases accounts for the second-biggest cause of death.
Other, less-common causes result from a person's increasing fragility - meaning that a traumatic fall or common genitourinary infection can be enough to overhelm the body, even though they would ordinarily be able to recover from such physical stress.
Digestive system disease and cancers are also frequently listed on death certificates, especially as age also plays a key role as dementia progresses.
However, in many cases, no specific cause of death is found beyond dementia or simply old age.
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