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. 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
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