According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, 6.8 million Americans suffer from dementia, of which, 1.8 million are severely affected. The count is expected to increase 3 to 4 fold in the next fifty years. A disorder of...
The final stages of dementia, as exemplified in those with Alzheimer's, mark a difficult transition period in the disease process when individuals have lost virtually all intellectual faculties and show increasing signs of emotional lability....
Dementia is a brain malfunction that restricts a person's normal activities and generally results in the need for long-term care. As the dementia progresses, remembering, learning and communicating become difficult. Sufferers can no longer care...
Dementia is a term that is used to describe a set of symptoms that includes memory loss and the loss of cognitive and intellectual function. Alzheimer's disease causes the majority of cases of dementia, but there are other disorders that also...
The first signs of memory impairment--getting lost, burning dinner or forgetting a neighbor's name--mark the beginning of a difficult journey, both for the sufferer as well as the caregivers. All caregivers are faced with the dilemma of how to...
Historically, dementia has been used as a catch-all phrase for symptoms of degenerative disorders of the brain. Several of these disorders are associated with vivid dreams and sleep disturbances as well as the more common symptoms of confusion,...
Dementia encompasses a wide variety of symptoms that involve social interaction and intellectual thinking. Changes in the brain can cause different symptoms to affect the way a person functions or performs daily activities. Memory loss and...
Late stage dementia is marked by the inability to communicate or take care of personal needs such as eating and dressing, as well as an increasing lack of responsiveness. Family members are often most disturbed when a loved one does not seem to...
A degenerative neurological disorder, dementia is prevalent in the elderly population. Epigee states that 20 percent of people between the ages of 85 and 89 and 33 percent of people 90 and older have the disorder. Dementia affects the patient's...
Vascular dementia, according to the Mayo Clinic, is the term for cognitive impairments that result from a problem with the brain's blood supply. There are many different types of vascular dementia, and as many as one to four percent of those over...
Incontinence in the Alzheimer's patient can be due to several factors, including confusion, decreased sensory awareness, disinterest in hygiene or a medical illness. It's important to first rule out a urinary tract infection or other medical...
End-stage dementia is marked by severe cognitive decline, and is an indication that the brain has lost the ability to communicate with the body. When dementia patients reach the final stages of the disease, most require around-the-clock nursing...
Frontotemporal dementia, or FTD, is a degenerative disease that affects the front part of the brain. Frontotemporal dementia begins earlier than other types of dementia, with the age of onset typically between 40 and 65, according to the National...
Alzheimer's disease is a progressive brain disorder and the most common type of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, and it currently affects over 5 million Americans according to the Alzheimer's Association. There are seven clinical...
Lewy bodies are clumps of abnormal proteins found within brain cells. Lewy bodies can only be seen in autopsies, and have been found in the brains of Parkinson's patients who had dementia symptoms, patients who had a dementia similar to...
The loss of communication skills is one of the most recognizable symptoms of dementia. Losing the ability to communicate causes anxiety, fear and confusion in dementia patients. Caregivers must understand nonverbal cues and use different words to...
Dementia is a degenerative neurological condition characterized by changes in behavior and cognitive function. The Mayo Clinic notes that certain criteria must be met to reach a diagnosis of dementia, with the patient experiencing problems with...
The Mayo Clinic notes that dementia is not a specific disorder but a term that encompasses a group of degenerative brain disorders where the patient had a loss of mental function; the most common form of dementia is Alzheimer's disease. When the...
Dementia is not a specific disease; rather, dementia is a condition categorized by a group of symptoms. The most common forms of dementia are not reversible and make up nearly 95 percent of dementia cases. These include Alzheimer's disease,...
Dementia is a brain disorder that has many different symptoms depending on the stage and the cause of the disease. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia, but other diseases such as Parkinson's and Huntington's disease can also...
Dementia impacts nearly every aspect of an individual's life. While memory loss is a symptom of dementia, there has to be at least one other significant cognitive impairment for a dementia diagnosis. For example, the person might also have...
Dementia, often called senility, describes a group of conditions that affect the brain. Although the most common symptom is memory loss, this alone does not indicate the presence of dementia. Dementia interrupts normal activities, interferes with...
Dementia is a degenerative disease that damages the patient's memory, behavior, language, judgment and thinking. Alzheimer's disease is one form of dementia, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
While everyone of a certain age tends to get a little forgetful, and you need glasses to read the phone book, these same symptoms often become magnified and serve as early warning signals of impending dementia. Whether it takes the form of...
Tying weight loss to dementia in the elderly makes sense. Just as those with dementia have difficulty performing their daily tasks, such as dressing and washing themselves, they also often forget, or refuse, to eat. Over the last decade, studies...
Dementia is a progressive disease that affects a person's ability to communicate, think and care for himself. Dementia is the state of damaged brain cells that may occur from an injury, stroke or genetic anomaly. Alzheimer's disease is perhaps one...
Currently, there is no cure for dementia. According to the University of California-San Francisco, the goal of medication treatment with this population is to slow the neurodegenerative progression of the disease, address accompanying erratic or...
Dementia is not a disease, but a series of symptoms that may include loss of cognitive function and changes in personality, mood or behavior. People who experience early signs of dementia may fear irreversible mental decline. In fact, depression,...
Seniors who develop dementia are at risk of many complications that impact their physical and mental health. Dementia involves cognitive decline resulting in changed moods, personality and behaviors. The risk of developing Alzheimer's disease or...
