- There are more than one hundred conditions that cause dementia.
- Although dementia is far more common in the geriatric population, it may occur as a child.
- Dementia is currently the 2nd largest cause of disability burden after depression.
- Alzheimer's disease, the most common cause of dementia, accounts for between 50 percent and 70 percent of all cases.
- Dementia reduces the ability to learn, reason, retain or recall past experience and there is also loss of patterns of thoughts, feelings and activities.
- More than 5 million of the US population suffer from Alzheimer's disease.
- In the coming years dementia is projected to be the largest source of burden of disease for women and the 5th largest for men.
- Dementia, though often treatable to some degree, is usually due to causes that are progressive and incurable.
- Chronic use of substances such as alcohol or recreational drugs can also predispose the patient to cognitive changes suggestive of dementia.
- Dementia ranks as the fourth leading cause of death among the population aged 65 years and over.
- There are now an estimated twenty-four million people living with some form of dementia in the world.
- Less than ten percent of cases of dementia are due to causes that may presently be reversed with treatment.
- Alzheimer's disease is the 7th leading cause of death in the United States.
- Depression affects 20–30 percent of people who have dementia.
Interesting facts about dementia
