What is Dementia?

There are several different categories of dementia and I think this is important to bring out. Sixty percent of all dementia is related to Alzheimer’s disease which we know is a disease process in the brain that attacks brain cells and many of the electrical connections between the brain cells. We can actually see that at autopsy when an individual’s brain is looked at by a pathologist. There is other dementia though. There’s vascular dementia where there’s an insufficiency of blood flow to the brain that potentially causes a stroke. And that area of the brain may be affected long term to create symptoms of dementia. And then there are other disorders that can create dementia as well. Alcoholism is one. Parkinson’s disease is another. Other kinds of neuromuscular disorders. So everybody now is using the term Alzheimer’s for dementia but really dementia has Alzheimer’s as a major component with many other disorders.