A case study

Dementia according to Stephen Tilley is a “progressive global impairment of cognitive function.” It means that dementia is a disorder in the mental domain and dementing illness has to do with abnormalities of ones behavior which manifested by an act of madness, craziness, or derangement.

But dementia according to Mary Kaplan does not only refer to one particular disease alone. It includes variety of disorders “that can be triggered by several un related situations.” (p5) Kaplan noted that some of this “disorder maybe reversible if diagnosed early and treated.” (p5) Thus management and treatment of person suffering from dementing illness is very important for the patient’s possibility of recovery.

Brian Draper clarified that the term dementia is a term “used medically to describe a syndrome that is caused by many different diseases.” (p1) It means that dementia has many other type including Alzheimer’s disease and other types of the disease though by definition the term was commonly identified as decline in memory and thinking due to brain disease.

Kaplan noted that recent public and professional awareness that “dementia is the result of a disease and not a normal part of aging has led to an increase in research in to the causes of dementing illnesses, as well as development of specific diagnostic criteria and tests.” (p6)

Dementia patients figured out by Nawab Qizilbash as commonly less educated adult. She says “dementia patients maybe older, less educated, and have more co- morbid medical condition and take more concomitant medication than the typical patient evaluated in clinical trial for dementia.” (p365)

Qizilbash cited some studies indicating that most of the patients suffering dementia illness were in their seventies, eighties and nineties but did not give clear idea whether the disease is age related. Here is Qizilbash statement regarding these studies:

“One is the case of the very elderly who will increasingly represent a larger portion of those with dementia, and for whom we really don’t know if there are important age related-differences in either the biology of their dementias or their response to therapies.

Although those who are older than eighty years represent at least half of those with dementias in most population, the averaged patient in clinical dementia trials is in their seventies with few nonagenarians exposed to treatment.”(p366)