Thursday, December 5, 2013

The Main Differences Between Alzheimer's And Dementia

By Jack Morgan


For a lot of people, the words Alzheimer's disease and dementia are being used interchangeably. That is why it is important to know the difference between Alzheimers and dementia to be able to understand them better. Generally, dementia is a term that pertains to a group of physical and mental symptoms that become so severe that it may interfere with the day-to-day activity of a person. The symptoms can be caused by different disorders or diseases.

On the other hand, Alzheimer's disease is a common cause of dementia. This kind of disease is usually suffered by older age group. Since it is considered as the most common cause of dementia, this disease is equated with its general term. But you should always remember that dementia has a lot of other causes, not only the Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's on the other hand is a main cause of dementia and especially in older people; in fact it is the main cause of dementia and therefore the common confusion between the two. Alzheimer's causes brain abnormalities in the affected individual and it is very hard to establish. This is because the abnormalities are microscopic and requires that the doctor carries out a closer examination on the patient's history.

To understand Dementia, a good analogy would be fever. Fever shoots the temperature of the person but doesn't give any information about what is causing the sickness. Dementia indicates that there is a problem with a person's brain, but doesn't provide information on what's causing the memory or cognitive problems. It's not a disease. Rather, it's a clinical presentation of a disease.

Some of the early signs of dementia include growing confusion and being forgetful. Patients who are suffering from this condition find it hard to remember faces as well as names. They cannot give care to themselves leading them to have inadequate personal hygiene.

When an individual is told they have dementia, it means they have a memory problem and a series of cognitive inabilities. These problems may get worse to an extent that they eat into the daily living of that person.

In most cases, a person having dementia develops it as a result of Alzheimer's disease. AD can have early stages when the symptoms are mild, but then it progresses from mild to severe stages with time.

Alzheimer's has no cure and therefore continues to claim lives of many people. This is especially boosted by the fact that it starts brain damage years earlier before the signs of its presence can show. It kills the brain cells making them to shrink and therefore the early death soon after the first signs show.

Dementia on the other hand starts with slight signs of forgetting things including names and faces of people you see regularly. The condition worsens as it progresses and the patient loses track of the most common setting. This can easily lead to depression making the patient fail to even take care of themselves.




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