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Early Childhood Dementia

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Dementia
What exactly is dementia? By definition, “Dementia, which is from the Latin word dement meaning ‘without mind,’ is a progressive deterioration and eventual loss of mental ability that is severe enough to interfere with normal activities of daily living, lasts more than six months, not present since birth, and not associated with a loss or alteration of consciousness” (Thomasson, 2014). Dementia is usually caused by a loss of brain cells in the cerebral cortex of the brain, the part responsible for thoughts, memory, actions, and personality (Thomasson, 2014). The loss of brain cells in this part of the brain usually leads to what is called cognitive impairment which can at some point be diagnosed as dementia (Thomasson, 2014). What a lot of …show more content…

Truly, there are many different kinds of dementias, and some may even lead to other types of similar diseases (Thomasson, 2014). Some major types of dementias are early onset dementia (EOD), non-alzheimer degenerative dementias, vascular dementias, and, Infectious dementias. In 2014, the European Journal of Neurology held a study looking deep into the prevalence of early onset dementia because the disorder seems to be so much more prevalent in older-aged people (Lambert, 2014). They released a systematic review of charts which determined that a number of people can develop symptoms at a younger age and that early onset dementia, even though it’s not that frequent in young people, early onset dementia and its symptoms still exist (Lambert, 2014) Pick’s disease, Parkinson disease, and Huntington’s disease are technically all classified as Non-Alzheimer degenerative dementias (Thomasson, 2014). Vascular dementia is a type of dementia formed by an interference of blood flow to the brain and a severe decline in mental function (Thomasson, 2014). And infectious dementias can either attack the brain directly, or eventually spread to it. Brain infections can be caused by viruses, bacteria, and

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