What is the difference between dementia and alzheimers disease
Alzheimer’s disease is a specific disease; dementia is a set of symptoms. Dementia is not a disease. If you have an infection in your leg, your leg may feel pain. Pain is the symptom and the infection is the disease. During the course of the Alzheimer’s disease plaques and tangles develop within the structure of the brain. This causes brain cells to die. Patients with Alzheimer’s also have a deficiency in the levels of some vital brain chemicals which are involved with the transmission of messages in the brain – neurotransmitters. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. The disease gets worse as it develops – it is a progressive disease. There is no current cure for Alzheimer’s, although there are ways of slowing down its advance and helping patients with some of the symptoms. Alzheimer’s is also a terminal disease – it is incurable and causes death. According the National Institute on Aging, there are estimated to be between 2.4 million and 4.5 million Americans who h
