Sometimes, dementia may have similar symptoms with other psychiatric diseases; however, medical specialists have developed a complex system to identify this illness. National Institute for Neurologial and Communicative Disorders and Stroke-Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association define dementia based on the following criteria: 1) decline in cognitive functioning; 2) low score on the neuropsychological test; 3) neuropsychiatric dysfunction in minimum two cognitive areas; 4) absence of delirium (Zahdi and Ham 59). The first criterion is crucial. In order to obtain the detailed history of decline in the patient’s cognitive functions, the specialists should interview a person who has known the patient for a relatively long time and can share detailed information about the person’s cognitive disabilities and the time they started. Such cognitive dysfunctions may include …show more content…
They include:
Lewy body dementia which is the result of the formation of protein substances called Lewy bodies in the nerve cells. As the disease progresses, its symptoms include the following: sleep-related difficulties, behavioral, cognitive and physical dysfunctions. Lewy body dementia can be subdivided into two types:
1) Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) which is hard to diagnose at the early stage as it has no obvious symptoms. As it progresses, the substantia nigra neurons which produce dopamine become damaged or die which causes deterioration of the outer cortex of the brain. Many of the remaining neurons contain Lewy bodies. At the later stage, the symptoms of DLB include poor reasoning, memory loss; possibly, difficulties with movement and problems with attention.
2) Parkinson’s disease dementia (PDD) – a type of DLB diagnosed in patients with Parkinson’s disease. A majority of them later suffer from PDD. The disease negatively affects memory, speaking, reasoning