The Difference between Dementia and Alzheimer's

The Difference between Dementia and Alzheimer's

In the UK, there will be over a million individuals living with dementia by 2025. 225,000 people will get dementia this year alone, or one every three minutes. Given these details, it comes as a surprise that so many individuals are unaware of the distinctions between dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

An "umbrella" word, dementia refers to symptoms that manifest when the brain is harmed by a variety of various illnesses and situations. Dementia typically starts with minor amnesia episodes and eventually renders the afflicted incapable of understanding time or navigating familiar environments.

The person's confusion and forgetfulness will worsen as the dementia progresses. They will struggle to remember names and faces, and eventually they won't be able to take care of themselves on their own.

There are many different types of dementia, however some are far more prevalent than others:

Alzheimer's Disease

This is the root of 50 to 70 % of dementia cases. Years before symptoms appear, the Alzheimer's brain begins to suffer damage. With time, memory and reasoning abilities deteriorate, making it impossible for sufferers to carry out daily duties. Brain scans have even revealed indications of considerable shrinking of brain tissue. With time, connections between brain cells eventually dissolve and die.

However, unlike other forms of dementia that may be managed and possibly even cured, Alzheimer's is an incurable disease. Some patients succumb to the cancer as quickly as three years after diagnosis because it is so aggressive and quick to progress. This limited period of survival time occurs predominantly in patients over the age of 80, with younger patients sporadically living for more than 10 years with the disease. It is extremely uncommon to be detected, though with Alzheimer's who are younger than 65

Alzheimer's has gained the most notoriety because it is the most prevalent cause of dementia. As a result, individuals start to use the term "Alzheimer's" more frequently than "dementia," confusing the two as either one and the same condition or two totally different problems. Since there will be 75.6 million people living with dementia worldwide over the next 20 years, with significantly more than half of those instances being brought on by Alzheimer's disease, it is crucial to properly define the differences.

Vascular Dementia

In the UK, vascular dementia affects about 150,000 people and is the second most frequent type of dementia. When the brain is harmed because of issues with blood flow, dementia symptoms develop. The most frequent of the causes of vascular dementia is a stroke. When the blood supply to the brain is effectively cut off and a blood artery narrows and forms a clot, a stroke occurs. Strokes can vary in intensity and are not always associated with vascular dementia. However, someone who has had a stroke is more likely to experience more strokes, which will raise the likelihood of acquiring vascular dementia.

Dementia with Lewy Bodies

In nerve cells, there exist tiny protein deposits called Lewy bodies. Dementia with Lewy bodies exhibits symptoms that are frequently mistaken for those of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. Lewy bodies are connected to the breakdown of connections between nerve cells and low amounts of critical chemical messengers, albeit their exact mechanism of causing dementia is still unknown. Similar to Alzheimer's disease, there is a slow loss of brain tissue and death of nerve cells.

Fronto-Temporal Dementia

Fronto-temporal dementia, one of the less frequent varieties of dementia, develops when the two frontal lobes of the brain are harmed. The front lobes are crucial because they regulate behaviour, feelings, and language. Fronto-Temporal injury is a key contributor to dementia in people under the age of 65, although being less common than other types of dementia.

Rare Causes of Dementia

Alzheimer's disease and dementia can develop in the later stages of HIV and AIDS, and conditions like Parkinson's and Huntington's disease can also act as a trigger. Although this type of disease is not officially a form of dementia, heavy drinking over an extended period of time can occasionally develop dementia symptoms as well.