Cognitive

Dementia Causes

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Dementia Causes, Dementia Differential Diagnosis

  • See Also
  1. Dementia
  2. Altered Level of Consciousness
  3. Delirium
  • Causes
  • Primary
  1. Alzheimer's Disease (50-60% of Dementia cases)
  2. Pick's Disease (Frontotemporal Dementia)
  3. Vascular Dementia (5-20%)
  4. Dementia with Lewy Bodies
    1. Parkinson's Disease
    2. Huntington's Disease
    3. Wilson's Disease
    4. Progressive supranuclear palsy
  • Causes
  • Secondary
  1. Multi-infarct Dementia (15-20% of Dementia cases)
  2. Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus
  3. Head Trauma
  4. Mass lesions (Intracranial Tumor)
  5. Drug toxicity or metabolic disturbance
    1. Anticholinergic Medications
    2. Vitamin B12 Deficiency
    3. Hypothyroidism
    4. Alcohol-related Dementia
    5. Wernnicke's Encephalopathy
  6. Infections
    1. Creutzfeldt-Jakaob Disease
    2. Neurosyphilis
    3. AIDS or Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)
    4. Opportunistic infection (e.g. Toxoplasmosis, Cryptococcus)
    5. Encephalitis
  7. Multiple-systems atrophy
  8. Hypoperfusion (severe CHF)
  • Differential Diagnosis
  1. See Delirium
  2. See Medication Causes of Delirium in the Elderly
  3. Major Depression or pseudodementia
  • References
  1. Khoujah and Magidson (2016) Crit Dec Emerg Med 30(10): 3-10
  2. Falk (2018) Am Fam Physician 97(6): 398-405 [PubMed]