About 5-8% of all people over the age of 65 have some form of dementia, and this number doubles every five years above that age. Dementia is the loss of mental ability that is severe enough to interfere with people's every life and Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia in aging people.

II. Types of dementia

1. Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease is a brain disorder named for German physician Alois Alzheimer. Alzheimer's destroys brain cells, causing problems with memory, thinking and behavior severe enough to affect language communication, memory, lifelong hobbies or social life. Alzheimer's gets worse over time, and it is fatal. Over 1 million people in US alone are currently afflicted by Alzheimer's disease because of degeneration of hippocampus and cerebral cortex of the brain where memory, language and cognition are located. With this mental disorder, brain cells gradually die and generate fewer and fewer chemical signals day by day resulting in diminished of functions. Overtime memory thinking as well as behavior deteriorates. Today, there is no know cure.

2. Absence of acetylcholine

If the nerves located in front of the brain perish, causing diminished quality of acetylcholine resulting in language difficulty, memory loss, concentration problem and reduced moblile skills because of lacking reaction in muscular activity and refection.

3. Dementia due to long-term alcohol abuse.

Dementia is common in patients with alcoholism. Most classic is the Korsakoff's dementia resulting in extremely poor short term memory and often associated with the memory losses are confabulations.

4. Multi-infarct dementia

Also known asvascular dementia , is the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's disease in older adults. It is caused by different mechanisms all resulting in vascular lesions in the brain.

5. Dementia associated with Parkinson's disease

Parkinson disease (PD) is a disabling, progressive condition. It is a cognitive deficits due to the interruption of frontal-subcortical loops that facilitate cognition and that parallel the motor loop.

6. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD)

People who have eaten contaminated beef many years may be infected without even knowing it. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a quickly progressing and fatal disease that consists of dementia, muscle twitching and spasm.

7. Subdural hematoma

It is the accumulation of blood beneath the outer covering of the brain that result from the rupture of blood vessel. Subdural hemorrhages may cause an increase in tracranial pressure, which can cause compression of and damage to delicate brain tissue. Acute subdural hematoma has a high mortality rate.

There are many types of dementia such as metabolic disorders, dementia due to long-term substance abuse, hypothyroidism, and hyperethyroidism. I hope this information will help. If you want to more information of the above subject, you can follow my series of articles at my home page:

Kyle J. Norton

http://medicaladvisorjournals.blogspot.com

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