What Is Dementia?

  • Not one disease, but a collection of symptoms
  • Significant impairment of intellectual function
  • Interferes with daily activities
  • Memory loss only part of problem
  • Also affects language skills, perception, reasoning, judgment

How Common is Dementia?

  • 6.8 million people in the United States have dementia
  • 1.8 million of those are severely affected
  • Almost half of all people age 85 and older have some form of dementia
  • Dementia is not a normal part of the aging process

Specific Dementias

  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • Vascular dementia
  • Lewy body dementia
  • Frontotemporal dementia
  • HIV associated dementia
  • Huntington’s disease
  • Dementia pugilistica
  • Corticobasal degeneration
  • Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
  • Parkinson’s w/dementia
  • Multiple sclerosis
  • ALS dementia
  • Olivopontocerebellar atrophy
  • Wilson’s disease
  • Normal pressure hydrocephalus