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dementia

File:An_old_man_diagnosed_as_suffering_from_senile_dementia._Colo_Wellcome_L0026689.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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dementia

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Also known as senility, rare dementia

Dementia is a syndrome, often associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, and characterized by a general decline in cognitive abilities that affects a person's ability to perform everyday activities. This typically involves problems with memory, thinking, behavior, and motor control. Aside from memory impairment and a disruption in thought patterns, the most common symptoms of dementia include emotional problems, difficulties with language, and decreased motivation. The symptoms may be described as occurring in a continuum over several stages. Dementia is an incurable, prog

OverviewAI-generated

Dementia is a medical condition categorized under the International Classification of Primary Care version 2 with the identifier P70. It is associated with specific codes in the ICD-9-CM system, including 290.8, 294.8, and 294.1. The condition is also identified by the NCI Thesaurus ID C4786.

The prevalence of dementia is recorded as 0.065. It is linked to several external database identifiers, such as DOID:1307 and Orphanet_89043. In academic literature, the term "dementia" appears in 325,630 PubMed records. Additionally, the subject is referenced by 3,476 other encyclopedia articles.

Synthesized by Vinony from 9 facts across 3 sources: Wikidata, PubMed, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Key facts

Medical condition.risks
Several across the life course (e.g. less education, hearing loss, vision loss, physical inactivity, obesity, high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, social isolation, air pollution, traumatic brain injury, depression)
Medical condition.diagnosis
Clinical assessment, cognitive testing (mini–mental state examination), and imaging
Medical condition.differential
Delirium, depression, hypothyroidism
Medical condition.prevention
Addressing risk factors throughout the life course, e.g. preventing, reducing or treating hearing and vision loss, depression, head injury and vascular risk factors (e.g. cholesterol, diabetes), decreasing smoking, and maintaining physical activity and cognitive stimulation
Medical condition.treatment
Varies but supportive care is given
Medical condition.medication
Varies depending on the type and stage, most medications have a small benefit
Medical condition.prognosis
Varies, dementia is a life limiting condition and life expectancy is usually shortened
Medical condition.frequency
57 million (2021)
Medical condition.deaths
1.62 million dementia-related deaths (2019) estimated to increase to 4.91 million by 2050
Medical condition.name
Dementia
Medical condition.image
File:An old man diagnosed as suffering from senile dementia. Colo Wellcome L0026689.jpg
Medical condition.caption
1896 lithograph of a man with dementia
Medical condition.field
Neurology, psychiatry, Neuropsychiatry
Medical condition.symptoms
Decreased ability to think and remember, emotional problems, problems with language, decreased motivation, general decline in cognitive abilities
Medical condition.complications
Malnutrition, pneumonia, inability to perform self-care tasks, personal safety challenges, fractures from falls.
Medical condition.onset
Varies, usually gradual
Medical condition.duration
Varies, usually long term
Medical condition.causes
Neurodegeneration, vascular disease, stroke, traumatic brain injuries

via Wikipedia infobox

Research

325,630 papers

via PubMed

~82 min read

Encyclopedic overview

56 sections
Contents
  • Signs and symptoms
  • Stages
  • Prodromal
  • Early
  • Middle
  • Late
  • Types
  • Alzheimer's disease
  • Vascular dementia
  • Lewy body dementias
  • Frontotemporal dementias
  • Mixed dementia
  • Autoimmune dementia
  • Childhood dementias
  • Early onset dementia
  • Later onset dementia
  • Secondary dementias
  • Huntington's disease
  • HIV
  • Prion diseases
  • Alcohol-related dementia
  • Conditions with dementia-like symptoms
  • Diagnosis
  • Imaging
  • Prevention
  • Risk factors{{anchor|Causes}}
  • Diet
  • Dental health
  • Management
  • Psychological and psychosocial therapies
  • Cognitive training and rehabilitation
  • Medications
  • Palliative care
  • Person-centered care
  • Sleep disturbances
  • Pain
  • Eating difficulties
  • Exercise
  • Assistive technology and digital health
  • Suicide risk following diagnosis
  • Epidemiology
  • Inequities and inequalities
  • Socioeconomic status and deprivation
  • Race and ethnicity
  • Gender
  • History
  • Terminology
  • Society and culture
  • National policies on dementia
  • Financial costs
  • Awareness
  • Philanthropy
  • Research directions
  • References
  • Further reading
  • External links

Dementia is a syndrome, often associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, and characterized by a general decline in cognitive abilities that affects a person's ability to perform everyday activities. This typically involves problems with memory, thinking, behavior, and motor control. Aside from memory impairment and a disruption in thought patterns, the most common symptoms of dementia include emotional problems, difficulties with language, and decreased motivation. The symptoms may be described as occurring in a continuum over several stages. Dementia is an incurable, progressive neurocognitive disorder, with varying degrees of severity (mild to major) and many forms or subtypes. The condition has a significant effect on the individual, their caregivers, and their social relationships in general. Dementia is not the same as age-related decline in cognition and memory, with no change in intelligence.

The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer's. Dementia can be caused by brain injuries and stroke. It has also been described as a spectrum of disorders with subtypes of dementia based on which known disorder caused its development, such as Parkinson's disease for Parkinson's disease dementia, Huntington's disease for Huntington's disease dementia, vascular disease for vascular dementia, HIV infection causing HIV dementia, frontotemporal lobar degeneration for frontotemporal dementia, Lewy body disease for dementia with Lewy bodies, and prion diseases. Subtypes of neurodegenerative dementias may also be based on the underlying pathology of misfolded proteins, such as synucleinopathies and tauopathies. The coexistence of more than one type of dementia is known as mixed dementia.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “dementia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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