Lexic.us

Definition of Dementia

1. Noun. Mental deterioration of organic or functional origin.

Definition of Dementia

1. n. Insanity; madness; esp. that form which consists in weakness or total loss of thought and reason; mental imbecility; idiocy.

Definition of Dementia

1. Noun. (pathology) A progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage or disease in the brain beyond what might be expected from normal aging. Areas particularly affected include memory, attention, judgement, language and problem solving. ¹

2. Noun. madness or insanity ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Dementia

1. mental illness [n -S]

Medical Definition of Dementia

1. An organic mental disorder characterised by a general loss of intellectual abilities involving impairment of memory, judgment and abstract thinking as well as changes in personality. It does not include loss of intellectual functioning caused by clouding of consciousness (as in delirium) nor that caused by depression or other functional mental disorder (pseudodementia). Dementia may be caused by a large number of conditions, some reversible and some progressive, that cause widespread cerebral and damage or dysfunction. The most common cause is Alzheimer's disease, others are cerebrovascular disease (multi infarct dementia), central nervous system infection, brain trauma or tumours, pernicious anaemia, folic acid deficiency, Wernicke Korsakoff syndrome, normal pressure hydrocephalus, and, neurological diseases such as Huntington disease, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease. Origin: L. Mens = mind This entry appears with permission from the Dictionary of Cell and Molecular Biology (11 Mar 2008)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Dementia

Literary usage of Dementia

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. Monographic Medicine by William Robie Patten Emerson, Guido Guerrini, William Brown, Wendell Christopher Phillips, John Whitridge Williams, John Appleton Swett, Hans Günther, Mario Mariotti, Hugh Grant Rowell (1916)
"Constitutional factors in the dementia praecox group. Rev. ... On some of the mental mechanisms in dementia praecox. J. Abnorm. Psychol., Boston, 1010-11, ..."

2. Nervous and mental diseases by Archibald Church, Frederick Peterson (1911)
"He has brought together under this name a group of mental disorders, the distinguishing feature in all of which is a special type of dementia most clearly ..."

3. Outlines of Psychiatry by William Alanson White (1915)
"dementia precox is 2r psychosis essentially of the period of puberty and adolescence, characterized by a dementia tending to progress, though frequently ..."

4. Psychological Review by American Psychological Association (1896)
"B. Cases of Senile dementia which set in with apoplexies or other focal symptoms. Clinically, the cases with focal lesions are marked with rapidly ..."

5. The Unsound Mind and the Law: A Presentation of Forensic Psychiatry by George W. Jacoby (1918)
"The differentiation between dementia praecox paranoides and paranoia itself ... Inasmuch as a dementia praecox paranoides usually does not develop until ..."

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