Educational scope notice: This is a study note for medical students, not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment guidance. Clinical management should follow local protocols and current guidelines.
Dementia means an acquired decline in cognitive function that interferes with usual activities such as work, social interaction, and self-care. It is a clinical syndrome rather than a single disease: different causes produce a similar functional loss through different patterns, so recognising the pattern is what points toward the cause.
The companions divide the topic into causes, assessment, and care. One note compares the major causes side by side, one covers the prodrome stage before dementia, and three follow the causes with the most distinctive patterns. Two further notes cover how dementia is assessed and treated, and a final note follows the course over time.
Choose a route through the topic
- Classification compares the major causes and the framework for telling them apart.
- Mild cognitive impairment covers measurable decline before daily activities are affected and how prognosis is assessed.
- Dementia with Lewy bodies follows the cause with early visual hallucinations, fluctuating cognition, and Parkinsonism.
- Frontotemporal dementia follows the cause where personality or language change comes before memory loss.
- Vascular and reversible dementias covers stepwise vascular decline alongside the treatable conditions that can resemble dementia.
- Diagnosis sets out what the bedside assessment establishes and how further testing is chosen.
- Treatment covers the general approach to care once a cause has been identified.
- Monitoring follows the course over time, including behavioural change and caregiver assessment.
Read the classification note first for the overall map, then the cause that fits the patient, then diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring in order. A companion cluster on Alzheimer disease covers the dominant cause in depth.