Dementia is not a specific disease, but describes a group of symptoms affecting memory, thinking and social abilities. It typically starts mildly and then progresses until it’s severe enough to impact your daily life.
Dementia generally involves memory loss, but just having memory loss doesn’t necessarily indicate dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common and well-known cause of progressive dementia and memory loss in older adults. Depending on the cause of your dementia symptoms, some dementia may be reversible.
Dementia Symptoms
Dementia shows itself in more ways than just memory loss. Most people think that dementia is only memory loss, but it manifests itself in both physically and cognitively.
Cognitive Symptoms
- Memory loss, often noticed by a spouse or a loved one
- Difficult communicating or finding words
- Impairments in vision and spatial perception
- Impairments in logical thinking or problem-solving
- Problems completing complex tasks
- Problems with planning or organization
- Coordination and motor function impairment
- Disorientation and confusion
Psychological Symptoms
- Noticeable changes to personality
- Depression or mood disorders
- Anxiety and paranoia
- Inappropriate or impulsive behavior
- Agitation
- Hallucinations
Causes of Dementia
Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s is the most common cause of dementia, accounting for 60 to 80 percent of all dementia cases. The disease is a progressive mental deterioration that can occur in as early as middle age, due to a generalized degeneration of the brain.
Alzheimer’s disease is named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer, who originally noticed changes in brain tissue of a woman who had died of an unusual mental illness. Before her death, this woman was showing a number of symptoms that we now associate with Alzheimer’s disease: memory loss, language problems, and unpredictable behavior. Her brain exhibited the main features of Alzheimer’s. Dr. Alois Alzheimer found abnormal clumps (called amyloid plaques) and tangled fiber bundles (called neurofibrillary tangles).
Vascular Dementia
Vascular dementia is the decline in brain function caused by damaged blood vessels in the brain. Since blood flow to the brain is hindered, the brain loses its supply of oxygen and vital nutrients.
Lack of blood flow to any part of your body can cause major problems, but when your brain isn’t getting enough blood flow, your entire body suffers. Vascular dementia can happen as a result of a stroke that blocks blood flow to major blood vessels in the brain.
Vascular dementia often comes with other types of dementia, including Lewy body dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The severity of vascular dementia varies greatly from person to person, because of the level of blood flow blockage.
Lewy Body Dementia
Lewy Body dementia is the second most common type of progressive dementia. Lewy bodies are protein deposits that develop inside the nerve cells in the brain regions associated with thinking, memory and motor control.
Lewy body dementia causes a progressive decline in mental abilities. Symptoms of Lewy body dementia are often similar to Parkinson’s disease including stiff muscles, slow movement and tremors. Other signs are visual hallucinations and declines in alertness and attention.
Frontotemporal Dementia
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) refers to a group of brain disorders caused by degeneration in the frontal and temporal lobes. In contrast to other types of dementia, like Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia typically comes on at a younger age. Onset ranges from 21 to 80, but most cases start between 45 and 64. Because people usually suffer for longer with this type of dementia, the impacts can be much greater.
FTD typically brings about slow and progressive changes in behavior, speaking and movement, even with memory intact.
Mixed Dementia
Mixed dementia is when someone is suffering from dementia due to multiple diseases or degenerations. People often suffer from Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia or Lewy body dementia.
People with mixed dementia are often diagnosed with one form of dementia and the other cause will go relatively unnoticed until late in the diseases progression or until an autopsy notices differences in their brain.
Huntington’s Disease
Huntington’s disease is a hereditary condition that involves nerve cells breaking down over time. It impacts nerves throughout the brain, but some areas are more vulnerable than others. The nuclei in the parts of the brain that affect movement and behavior control are the most prominently impacted in early stages of Huntington’s Disease.
Huntington’s disease has very severe impacts on those who have it. It’s been dscribed as having ALS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s simultaneously. Every person who inherits the expanded Huntingon’s disease gene will eventually develop the disease. It will eventually impact the person’s ability to walk, reason and speak. Typically those suffering from the disease will fall victim to fatal pneumonia, heart failure or other complications.
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) stems from an impact to the head that causes problems with normal brain function. Since every brain injury is different, the resulting impacts and impairments are all different. TBI could cause cognitive issues, including learning impairments.
Most issues of traumatic brain injuries are direct effects of the injury. These may be long-lasting or permanent and include unconsciousness, memory loss, confusion, difficulty retaining information, speech issues, lack of coordination or vision and hearing problems.
Some types of brain injuries may increase risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia later in life.