For other uses, see Dementia (disambiguation).

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).

Affected persons may also show signs of psychosis and delirium.

Diagnosis

Proper differential diagnosis between the types of dementia (see below) will require at the least, referral to a specialist, e.g. a geriatrician or neurologist. However, to establish dementia as a possibility the Abbreviated Mental Test Score may be used.

Abbreviated Mental Test Score (AMTS)

Ask these questions of the patient. Each question correctly answered scores one point.

A score of less than six on this test suggests dementia. Routine blood tests should be performed to rule out treatable causes.

Types

The most common types of dementia are as follows and vary according to the history and the presentation of the disease:

• Alzheimer's disease
• multi-infarct dementia (also known as vascular dementia), including Binswanger's disease
  • dementia with Lewy bodies
• Frontotemporal dementia including Pick's disease
  • Corticobasal degeneration
  • Semantic dementia

Approximately 10% of a sample of suspected dementia cases, will have a potentially treatable cause. These include:

• Depressive pseudodementia
• Acute confusional state or delirium
• Hypothyroidism
• Normal pressure hydrocephalus
• Vitamin B12 deficiency
• Vitamin B6 (thiamin) deficiency
• Tumor

or in very rare cases

• Frontal lobe type
• Head trauma
• Parkinson's disease
• Huntington's disease
• Down's syndrome
• Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
• AIDS

External links

• Dementia tutorial for U.K. practitioners by the Alzheimer's Society (http://www.ehr.chime.ucl.ac.uk/demcare/index.html)

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