The most common types of dementia are as follows and vary according to the history and the presentation of the disease:
Alzheimer's disease
Multi-infarct dementia (also known as vascular dementia), including Binswanger's disease
Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB)
Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), including Pick's disease and dementia lacking distinctive histology (DLDH)
Frontal variant frontotemporal dementia
Semantic dementia
Progressive non-fluent aphasia
Approximately 10% of a sample of suspected dementia cases have a potentially treatable cause. These include:
Depressive pseudodementia
Acute confusional state or delirium
Hypothyroidism
Normal pressure hydrocephalus
Vitamin B12 deficiency
Vitamin B6 (thiamin) deficiency
Tumour
It can also be a consequence of:
Head trauma
Parkinson's disease
Huntington's disease
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
AIDS
People with Down's syndrome have an increased risk of developing dementia of the Alzheimer's type. This risk increases as the person ages.
Lisa Angelettie, M.S.W., is a psychotherapist, author, and an online advice expert. She has been helping people make smarter life choices since 1998. Visit her for Advice & Counseling, or take a free Depression Screening today.
Subscribe to the growing self-help ezine "Better Choices".
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Dementia". You are free to copy & use this article under the terms of the license. *Please note that a courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.
