Dementia is a condition that affects a person’s ability to think. It can impact their memory, reasoning, mood, and other features.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, but there are several other types and causes.
The most frequent question we receive at Care in Midstream is:
What is the difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease?
Dementia describes a set of symptoms that broadly affect a person’s cognitive functioning. Depending on the type and cause, dementia can affect the following: memory, thinking and focus, problem-solving abilities, language use, and visual perception.
Alzheimer’s disease is a specific type of dementia. It involves progressive damage to brain cells, resulting in memory loss and a decline in other aspects of thinking.
Dementia
Dementia can affect a wide range of mental functions, and many different conditions have links with dementia. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia and accounts for around 70% of cases. However, there are other types and causes, including:
- Lewy body dementia, which is a result of unusual protein deposits in the brain
- Vascular dementia, which results from strokes and other conditions that block blood flow to the brain
- Frontotemporal disorders, which are due to damage to the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain
- Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
- Huntington’s disease
- Chronic traumatic encephalopathy due to repeated traumatic brain injury
It is possible to have multiple types of dementia. The term for this is mixed dementia.
Dementia symptoms range in severity and vary depending on the area of the brain that the condition affects. The most common symptoms include anxiety and distress, low mood, detachment and disinterest, repeating the same questions, psychosis, sleep disturbances, walking around for no apparent reason, and inappropriate behaviours, such as social and sexual disinhibition. Symptoms can take time to appear, and significant damage may be present before a person visits a doctor. This may make treatment more challenging.
Alzheimer's Disease
In Alzheimer’s disease, researchers believe that a buildup of unusual proteins forms plaques and tangles in the brain and causes symptoms. These proteins surround brain cells and can affect their ability to communicate. This eventually causes damage to the cells until they can no longer function. Some scientists have found that these buildups occur in specific brain areas, including the hippocampus – this region plays a crucial role in long-term memory recall. Early signs and symptoms include difficulty remembering things and confusion. In time, a person may also experience the following:
- Disorientation, mood and behavioural changes
- Confusion about times, places, and events
- Unfounded suspicions about people around them
- Difficulty using and understanding words
- Physical problems, such as difficulty swallowing and walking