Dementia vs. Alzheimer's Disease

"The doctor says that Mom doesn't have Alzheimer's,
she has dementia. What's the difference?

Dementia means difficulty or the inability to clearly think. It is characterized by atypical behavior; confusion; poor judgment; failure to recognize people, places and things; personality changes; and, emotional disturbances.

The more clinical definition would be the loss of cognitive or intellectual function or a clinical state characterized by loss of function in multiple cognitive domains. In order to be dementia

• the problem needs to be severe enough to cause impairment in social and occupational functioning and
• it must also represent a decline from a previously higher level of functioning

Simply put, dementia is a symptom. If you woke up one morning with a cough, you wouldn't automatically assume it was pneumonia or even the flu. It could be any one of a number of illnesses that include a cough as one of their symptoms. The same holds true for dementia and Alzheimer's. Dementia is but a single symptom of Alzheimer's disease. Yet dementia is also symptomatic of many other conditions besides AD, including hypothyroidism, stroke, and even depression. The appearance of this single symptom need not result in a self-diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

On the other hand, Alzheimer's is the number one cause of dementia in older people. Alzheimer's accounts for approximately 70% of all dementia's for persons older than 85. But that still leaves around 30% that could be due to other conditions.

Other causes of dementia (besides Alzheimer's disease)

For these reasons it is critical to obtain a professional diagnosis from a qualified doctor, one who specializes in memory or cognitive disorders. Only in this way can the actual cause be identified and the proper treatment prescribed.