Dementia

Dementia (from Latin demens) is progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage or disease in the brain beyond what might be expected from normal aging. Particularly affected areas may be memory, attention, language and problem solving, although particularly in the later stages of the condition, affected persons may be disoriented in time (not knowing what day, week, month or year it is), place (not knowing where they are) and person (not knowing who they are). Symptoms of dementia can be classified as either reversible or irreversible depending upon the etiology of the disease, although dementia, by definition, is irreversible and will eventually result in death. Probably less than 5% of all dementias are reversible. Dementia is a non-specific term that encompasses many disease processes, just as fever is attributable to many etiologies.

Related Topics:
Latin - Cognitive function - Brain - Memory - Attention - Language - Problem solving - Disoriented - Etiology - Fever

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Early symptoms of dementia often consist in changes in personality, or in behavior. Often dementia can be first evident during an episode of delirium. There is a higher prevalence of eventually developing dementia in individuals who experience an acute episode of confusion while hospitalized.

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Dementia can affect language, comprehension, motor skills, short term memory, ability to identify commonly used items, reaction time, personality traits, and executive functioning.

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Elderly people can also react with dementia-like symptoms on infections, sleep deprivation, irregular food intake, dehydration, loneliness or personal crises. This is called delirium, and many if not most dementia patients also have a delirium on top of the physiologial dementia, adding to the symptoms. The delirium can be go away or greatly improve when treated with tender care, improved food and sleeping habits etcetera but this does not affect the alterations in the brain. Affected persons may also show signs of psychosis or depression. It is important to be able to differentiate between delirum and dementia.

Related Topics:
Delirium - Psychosis - Depression

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