Urbane

Dementia is the loss of intellectual function such as thinking, reasoning, planning and remembering to the extent of hampering the daily routines and performances of the individual.

Dementia is not a disease but rather an umbrella term covering a group of diseases which are accompanied by symptoms including loss of memory, loss of insight, mood and personality changes. Throughout the history of studies of dementias, there has been a divide between the observations made by clinicians evaluating patient’s symptoms, cognitive function and progression of the disease and the neuropathologist on the other hand who observes and evaluates the end stage of the disease by autopsy. Here we would like to link the careful clinical evaluation and diagnosis of the patients with the results from the cross-sectional studies of the autopsy material and pattern of neuronal loss and formation of deposits in the brain to determine the series of the events that lead to neurodegeneration and to study genetic cause of the disease. The path towards dementia treatment requires patience and endurance and it should begin as soon as the dementia symptoms appear.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of neurodegenerative dementia among elderly. The latest estimate of the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease worldwide shows that approximately 27 million people live with Alzheimer’s disease. An estimated 5 million Americans have AD and as the elderly population continues to grow, the prevalence could increase by three fold by 2050. Research on dementias has been focused on the areas such as genetics, epidemiology, diagnostic criteria, pathology and brain imaging techniques.

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