What is the Difference between Dementia and Alzheimer’s
In order to explain what is the difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s one first needs to know what dementia is. Dementia is the deterioration of our cognition. In Latin it means ‘ apart mind’ in fact it states that your mind is losing the grip of your body. It is important to understand that dementia consists of signs and symptoms. This is because it is a syndrome and not a disease like Alzheimer. There are many causes for dementia and it can be progressive or stable.
Dementia is a non-specific syndrome that targets different areas on the brain. For this reason there are many different symptoms associated with dementia. Typical areas of the brain that are affects are: communication, memory, orientation, problem solving and attention. We speak of dementia when someone has significant memory loss plus another impairment that both cause social disfunctioning. Unlike Alzheimer’s, dementia is not a disease on itself. It is a syndrome and it has a variety of causes from which Alzheimer is one of them.
As stated before, there are different types of dementia and Alzheimer disease is one of them. Alzheimer disease is characterized by the appearance of plaques and tangles in the brain. You can find these tangles and plaques in every aging brain but in people with Alzheimer disease there is an abnormal quantity. These plaques and tangles interfere with the functioning of our brain on different areas on the brain. Therefore Alzheimer is also called pathological rapidly aging of the brain.
So the exact difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s is that dementia is a non-specific syndrome and Alzheimer is a specific disease. Many people can not explain the difference and this is probably because Alzheimer is the most prominent cause of dementia. Almost 70% of all people with dementia have the type of Alzheimer. Other causes of dementia are Stroke, Parkinson, Lewy body disease, Fronto-temporal dementia, Huntington and even Aids/HIV.
But is it important to know what type of dementia patients have? In fact it sure is, although there is a large variety of symptoms between all types of dementia, every type is characterized by certain specific symptoms. Lewy Body Disease (LBD), for instance, comes with hallucinations and delusion. It is very important to know if it is Lewy Body causing the hallucinations because the primary treatment would be Haldol. However, you can not give Haldol to people with LBD because it is dangerous. Other differences are that dementia caused by stroke often results in a stable cognitive situation where Alzheimer is very progressive.
Your doctor and psychologist are specialized in finding out what is the difference between dementia and alzheimer’s. Their professional examination often results in a correct diagnosis.