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Dementia What is Dementia ? Dementia is an organic brain syndrome which results in global cognitive impairments. Dementia can occur as a result of a variety of neurological diseases. Some of the more well known dementing diseases include Alzheimer's disease (AD), multi-infarct dementia (MID), and Huntington's disease (HD). Throughout this essay the emphasis will be placed on AD (also known as dementia of the Alzheimer's type, and primary degenerative dementia), because statistically it is the most …

…It meant 'being out of one's mind' and, as such, was a general term for insanity (Pitt, 1987). It was the encylopedist Celsus who first used the word dementia in his De re medicina, published around AD 30. A century later the Cappadocian physician Aretaeus first described senile dementia with the word dotage (i.e., "The dotage which is the calamity of old age...dotage commencing with old age never intermits, but accompanies the patient until death.").