Depression. The symptoms of depression are often mistaken for dementia. It is not easy to define the symptoms because many people with dementia develop signs of depression, such as feelings of low self-esteem and confidence, tearfulness and appetite, concentration and memory problems.
Dementia is a brain disorder that results in memory loss and trouble communicating. Unlike depression or other forms of mental illness that happen more suddenly, people living with dementia decline over a period of time, this depends on the form of dementia they have.
Delirium is a mental state that causes confusion and disorientation, and it is typically caused by acute illness or drug intoxication. Delirium is commonly mistaken for dementia due to the many overlapping symptoms. However, unlike dementia, delirium is often reversible.
Pseudodementia (fake dementia or fake cognitive decline) occurs when a person is so slowed down from depression or another psychiatric illness that they present as intellectually or cognitively impaired.
People with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are often misdiagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD), psychiatric disorders, vascular dementia or Parkinson's disease. The early symptoms and the brain image are often the most helpful tools to reach the right diagnosis.
Depression is by far the most common of the potentially reversible conditions.
Additionally, the conditions might have similar symptoms. This is especially true of late-onset bipolar disorder, a less common diagnosis that can appear at a similar stage of life as dementia.
Brain scans do not always show abnormalities in people diagnosed with dementia, as sometimes there are no visible changes in the brain. Sometimes, brain scans can be used to determine the type of dementia.
There is no one test to determine if someone has dementia. Doctors diagnose Alzheimer's and other types of dementia based on a careful medical history, a physical examination, laboratory tests, and the characteristic changes in thinking, day-to-day function and behavior associated with each type.
This is a diagnosed condition that occurs when a person has been through a life-changing or distressing event. Alzheimer's Society-funded research has also analysed the literature related to the link between PTSD and dementia. They found that people with PTSD have up to twice the risk of developing dementia.
Vitamin B12 and Cognition
The signs of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia can mirror the symptoms of a vitamin B12 deficiency. It is important to know the difference and be able to detect both in your loved ones. Unlike Alzheimer's, a B12 deficiency can be reversed.
The following procedures also may be used to diagnose dementia: Cognitive and neurological tests. Used to evaluate thinking and physical functioning, these tests include assessments of memory, problem solving, language skills, and math skills, as well as balance, sensory response, and reflexes. Brain scans.
Within these groups, the researchers found that individuals with a mental-disorder diagnosis were more than four times as likely to develop dementia than those without a mental disorder.
Dementia is an umbrella term used to describe a range of neurological conditions affecting the brain that worsen over time. It is the loss of the ability to think, remember, and reason to levels that affect daily life and activities.
Administration: The examiner reads a list of 5 words at a rate of one per second, giving the following instructions: “This is a memory test. I am going to read a list of words that you will have to remember now and later on. Listen carefully. When I am through, tell me as many words as you can remember.
Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE)
The MMSE is the most common test for the screening of dementia. It assesses skills such as reading, writing, orientation and short-term memory.
The five-minute cognitive test (FCT) was designed to capture deficits in five domains of cognitive abilities, including episodic memory, language fluency, time orientation, visuospatial function, and executive function.
MRI is able to image the structure of the brain, which changes in dementia, to a very high resolution. For example, a characteristic sign of Alzheimer's disease is atrophy (shrinking) of a brain region called the hippocampus. This can easily be seen on an MRI scan and is currently used to aid diagnosis.
Dementia and bipolar disorder present different abnormalities in functional brain neuroimaging. The pattern of "ventral" hyperactivity and "dorsal" hypoactivity in brain emotional circuits at rest is revealed in bipolar disorder but not dementia.
Exposure to vitamin D was associated with significantly higher dementia-free survival, compared to no exposure (Figure 2A). The 5-year survival for D− was 68.4% (95% CI: 67.1%–69.7%), while for D+ it was 83.6% (95% CI: 82.3%–84.9%). MCI was associated with lower dementia-free survival than NC, as expected.
Lewy body dementia (LBD) is a disease associated with abnormal deposits of a protein called alpha-synuclein in the brain. These deposits, called Lewy bodies, affect chemicals in the brain whose changes, in turn, can lead to problems with thinking, movement, behavior, and mood.