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Dementia Vs Alzheimer's Essay

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The biggest difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s disease is that Alzheimer’s is degenerative and irreversible at this time. According to the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer's disease accounts for 50-70 percent of cases of dementia (Sahyouni et al, 2017). However, there are other disorders that cause dementia such as Vascular dementia, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson's disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, dementia with Lewy Bodies and Frontotemporal dementia. In the early stages of many of these disease there are obvious differences in symptoms however, as the disease progresses the differences become more subtle, which can often lead to misdiagnoses. Dementia is caused by damage to brain cells. Each region of the brain is responsible for different function. Thus, when brain cells get damaged in certain areas of the brain the cells can not carry out their functions. This in turn causes cognitive and behavioral problems to occur. There is no specific test that can determine if one has dementia or Alzheimer’s. A diagnoses comes from a doctor's careful assessment of the patient’s medical history, a physical and cognitive functioning examination, and laboratory tests (Mayo Clinic on Alzheimer’s). …show more content…

They can mimic the disease through both clinical presentation and also radiographic findings, such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Depression is one of the major imitators of Alzheimer’s. Furthermore, approximately 30-50% of people with Alzheimer’s also simultaneously suffer from depression. Due to the negative effects of depression, such as memory and motor dysfunction, one disease is often mistaken for the other. As a result of this, the National Institute of Mental Health has developed a criteria for diagnosing depression with Alzheimer’s (Mayo Clinic on

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