Health encyclopaedia - Alphabetical Topic List
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Causes of Dementia
Dementia is caused by damage to brain cells, often in the part of the brain that deals with thought processes. This damage may be caused by:
- Organic brain shrinking (Alzheimer’s Disease)
- Lack of blood and therefore oxygen supply to these brain areas
- Head injury
- Pressure (such as from a tumour)
- Infection (such as in Aids)
Approximately 60% of cases diagnosed as dementia are due to the organic brain- shrinking disorder, Alzheimer’s disease and the cause is unknown.
After Alzheimer's disease, the second most common type of dementia is vascular dementia (also known as multi-infarct dementia), which occurs as a result of lack of blood and oxygen to the brain in a series of tiny 'strokes'.
Other types of dementia are rarer, and may be due to:
- Aids
- Lewy body disease
- Pick's disease
- Huntingdon's disease or chorea
- Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (CJD)
- Dementia as part of a neurological (brain) illness such as Parkinson's disease
- A brain tumour
- Fluid build-up- ‘water on the brain’ (hydrocephalus)
- A long period of excessive alcohol intake or drug intoxication
- Dementia may be misdiagnosed in some psychiatric conditions, such as depression or schizophrenia
- Dementia may occur some untreated organic disorders such as severe thyroid gland underactivity (see hypothyroidism), hormone deficiency and urine infections.
