Primarily, people with AD experience serious memory loss as well as other changes such as confusion and poor judgement. The memory loss and difficulty with other processes involved with thinking is referred to as dementia. Dementia Dementia is the medical term for difficulty with memory and one other process of thinking such as speech, orientation, calculations or a change in personality. Dementia usually begins slowly and worsens with time. This is different from confusion, which can be caused by a severe medical illness or the medications used to treat various medical illnesses.
Confusion generally begins abruptly and has a recognized cause.
The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer's disease, but stroke and other neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Pick's disease, vitamin deficiency, thyroid deficiency, depression and normal pressure hydrocephalus can have similar symptoms. Alzheimer's disease was first described by Alois Alzheimer, a German neurologist, in 1906. Alzheimer's disease affects over 4 million Americans and the number affected is expected to double over the next 20 years. The symptoms of Alzheimer's disease are caused by the deterioration of nerve cells in the brain. Some APP accumulates during normal aging, but is much more severe in Alzheimer's disease.