{"id":173,"date":"2018-11-26T15:43:01","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T15:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kompetenz-statt-demenz.dsgip.de\/what-is-dementia\/demenz-alzheimer\/"},"modified":"2019-05-27T06:24:24","modified_gmt":"2019-05-27T06:24:24","slug":"overview","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/kompetenz-statt-demenz.dsgip.de\/en\/was-ist-demenz\/overview\/","title":{"rendered":"Overview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dementia is a clinical syndrome (a set of signs and symptoms) resulting from a progressive impairment of higher brain function, that leads to chronic intellectual and cognitive decline as the most prominent and defined feature of the condition. \u00a0Many different functions may be affect: language, attention, spatial orientation, perception, judgment, memory, etc.<\/p>\n<h2>Diseases that lead to dementia<\/h2>\n<p>Many different diseases can lead to dementia. It can be caused by:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Infectious diseases (HIV, meningitis)<\/li>\n<li>Vascular diseases (multiple strokes)<\/li>\n<li>Neurodegenerative diseases (Parkinson\u2019s disease and Alzheimer\u2019s disease)<\/li>\n<li>Brain trauma<\/li>\n<li>Long-time alcohol (Korsakoff syndrome)<\/li>\n<li>Drug abuse and many others diseases.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Diagnosis<\/h2>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">A diagnosis of dementia is often made following a thorough history and a cognitive function test \u2013 special questionnaires applied by physician or other healthy professional. A diagnosis of dementia must include an impairment of at least two of the following domains:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Impaired ability to remember new information<\/li>\n<li>Impaired reasoning<\/li>\n<li>Impaired visuospatial abilities<\/li>\n<li>Impaired language function<\/li>\n<li>Changes in personality or behaviour.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Dementia is not a disease in itself. Dementia\u00a0is a word used to describe a group of symptoms that occur when some brain functions stop to work properly<\/span><\/strong><\/em><b><span lang=\"EN-GB\">.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<h2>Diseases that cause dementia:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Alzheimer&#8217;s disease<\/strong>, with approx. 60% the most frequent cause of all dementias;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Vascular dementia<\/strong>, with about 10-15% of all dementias: The main cause of vascular dementia is vascular damage caused by arteriosclerosis. This leads to long-term circulatory disturbances in the brain.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mixed forms of vascular and Alzheimer&#8217;s dementia<\/strong> in about 20% of cases.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dementia with Lewy bodies<\/strong> with about 10-15% of all dementias: protein deposits, so-called Lewy corpuscles, are found in cerebral cortex pathology. Besides memory impairment, patients often present detailed optical perception disorders (&#8220;visitors&#8221;), fluctuating impairments of mental abilities and alertness during the course of the day and motor symptoms of Parkinson&#8217;s disease.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fronto-temporal dementia<\/strong>: Fronto-temporal dementia is a rare form of dementia (5%) and tends to affect younger patients (around the age of 50). This form of dementia is caused by shrinkage of the frontal or temporal lobe. Typical is a change in character and a disturbance in the processing of emotions. In special cases there may be an isolated, slowly progressing loss of speech (aphasia).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Other causes<\/strong>: alcohol and drugs abuse (Korsakoff-syndrome), brain tumor, brain trauma, vitamin B12 deficiency, HIV infection, hypothyroidism.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Despite over a century of research and technique progress, the accurate diagnosis of the cause of dementia remains challenging. Furthermore, some patients can present an overlap of two or three diseases (for example: AD + vascular dementia). However, the earlier diagnosis of Dementia is very important, since many preventive measures can be taken to avoid the development and progression of symptoms.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>References:<\/p>\n<p>World Health Organization: Factsheets Dementia<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/en\/news-room\/fact-sheets\/detail\/dementia\">https:\/\/www.who.int\/en\/news-room\/fact-sheets\/detail\/dementia<\/a><\/p>\n<p>van der Flier, W. M. and Scheltens, P. (2005) \u2018Epidemiology and risk factors of dementia\u2019, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery &amp;amp; Psychiatry, 76(suppl 5), p. v2 LP-v7. doi: 10.1136\/jnnp.2005.082867.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/jnnp.bmj.com\/content\/76\/suppl_5\/v2\">https:\/\/jnnp.bmj.com\/content\/76\/suppl_5\/v2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dementia is a clinical syndrome (a set of signs and symptoms) resulting from a progressive impairment of higher brain function,  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":167,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-173","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kompetenz-statt-demenz.dsgip.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kompetenz-statt-demenz.dsgip.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kompetenz-statt-demenz.dsgip.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kompetenz-statt-demenz.dsgip.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kompetenz-statt-demenz.dsgip.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kompetenz-statt-demenz.dsgip.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1756,"href":"https:\/\/kompetenz-statt-demenz.dsgip.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/173\/revisions\/1756"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kompetenz-statt-demenz.dsgip.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kompetenz-statt-demenz.dsgip.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}