- Section 1 The Subject Matter of and Approach to Psychiatry
- 1.3 Psychiatry as a worldwide public health problem
- 1.4 The history of psychiatry as a medical specialty
- 1.5 Ethics and values
- 1.6 The psychiatrist as a manager
- 1.7 Descriptive phenomenology
- 1.8 Assessment
- 1.9 Diagnosis and classification
- 1.10 From science to practice
- Section 2 The Scientific Basis of Psychiatric Aetiology
- 2.3 The contribution of neurosciences
- 2.4 The contribution of genetics
- 2.5 The contribution of psychological science
- 2.6 The contribution of social sciences
- 2.7 The contribution of epidemiology to psychiatric aetiology
- Section 3 Psychodynamic Contributions to Psychiatry
- Section 4 Clinical Syndromes of Adult Psychiatry
- 4.1 Delirium, dementia, amnesia, and other cognitive disorders
- 4.1.1 Delirium
- 4.1.2 Dementia: Alzheimer's disease
- 4.1.3 Frontotemporal dementias
- 4.1.4 Prion disease
- 4.1.5 Dementia with Lewy bodies
- 4.1.6 Dementia in Parkinson's disease
- 4.1.7 Dementia due to Huntington's disease
- 4.1.8 Vascular dementia
- 4.1.9 Dementia due to HIV disease
- 4.1.10 The neuropsychiatry of head injury
- 4.1.11 Alcohol-related dementia (alcohol-induced dementia; alcohol-related brain damage)
- 4.1.12 Amnesic syndromes
- 4.1.13 The management of dementia
- 4.1.14 Remediation of memory disorders
- 4.2 Substance use disorders
- 4.3 Schizophrenia and acute transient psychotic disorders
- 4.3.6 Aetiology
- 4.3.7 Course and outcome of schizophrenia and their prediction
- 4.3.8 Treatment and management of schizophrenia
- 4.3.9 Schizoaffective and schizotypal disorders
- 4.3.10 Acute and transient psychotic disorders
- 4.4 Persistent delusional symptoms and disorders
- 4.5 Mood disorders
- 4.6 Stress-related and adjustment disorders
- 4.7 Anxiety disorders
- Section 5 Psychiatry and Medicine
- Section 6 Treatment Methods in Psychiatry
- 6.2 Somatic treatments
- Section 7 Social Psychiatry and Service Provision
- Section 8 The Psychiatry of Old Age
- Section 9 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
The management of dementia
- Chapter:
- The management of dementia
- Author(s):
John-Paul Taylor
and Simon Fleminger
- DOI:
- 10.1093/med/9780199696758.003.0053
The term dementia is used in two different ways. First there are the dementias. These are diseases that cause progressive and diffuse cerebral damage, of which Alzheimer's disease is the most common. Second, dementia can be used to refer to a clinical syndrome. Thus dementia is ‘an acquired global impairment of intellect, memory, and personality, but without impairment of consciousness’. For clinicians this is the preferred usage, and the one adopted in this chapter. It demands that the cause of the dementia is explored, and makes no comment on the likely prognosis. This chapter will focus on the management of dementia regardless of the cause; however given the burden of dementia in older age, the discussion will be invariably, but not exclusively, slanted towards the management of dementia in this age group. Aspects of management specific to individual diseases which produce dementia will be avoided. In addition, a discourse on the management of cognitive and memory problems is excluded as these are described elsewhere (see Chapters 2.5.4 and 6.2.7). Patients who suffer the dementia before 18 years of age will, by and large, not be included; their needs are often best met by services provided for people with intellectual disability.
Access to the complete content on Oxford Medicine Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
- Section 1 The Subject Matter of and Approach to Psychiatry
- 1.3 Psychiatry as a worldwide public health problem
- 1.4 The history of psychiatry as a medical specialty
- 1.5 Ethics and values
- 1.6 The psychiatrist as a manager
- 1.7 Descriptive phenomenology
- 1.8 Assessment
- 1.9 Diagnosis and classification
- 1.10 From science to practice
- Section 2 The Scientific Basis of Psychiatric Aetiology
- 2.3 The contribution of neurosciences
- 2.4 The contribution of genetics
- 2.5 The contribution of psychological science
- 2.6 The contribution of social sciences
- 2.7 The contribution of epidemiology to psychiatric aetiology
- Section 3 Psychodynamic Contributions to Psychiatry
- Section 4 Clinical Syndromes of Adult Psychiatry
- 4.1 Delirium, dementia, amnesia, and other cognitive disorders
- 4.1.1 Delirium
- 4.1.2 Dementia: Alzheimer's disease
- 4.1.3 Frontotemporal dementias
- 4.1.4 Prion disease
- 4.1.5 Dementia with Lewy bodies
- 4.1.6 Dementia in Parkinson's disease
- 4.1.7 Dementia due to Huntington's disease
- 4.1.8 Vascular dementia
- 4.1.9 Dementia due to HIV disease
- 4.1.10 The neuropsychiatry of head injury
- 4.1.11 Alcohol-related dementia (alcohol-induced dementia; alcohol-related brain damage)
- 4.1.12 Amnesic syndromes
- 4.1.13 The management of dementia
- 4.1.14 Remediation of memory disorders
- 4.2 Substance use disorders
- 4.3 Schizophrenia and acute transient psychotic disorders
- 4.3.6 Aetiology
- 4.3.7 Course and outcome of schizophrenia and their prediction
- 4.3.8 Treatment and management of schizophrenia
- 4.3.9 Schizoaffective and schizotypal disorders
- 4.3.10 Acute and transient psychotic disorders
- 4.4 Persistent delusional symptoms and disorders
- 4.5 Mood disorders
- 4.6 Stress-related and adjustment disorders
- 4.7 Anxiety disorders
- Section 5 Psychiatry and Medicine
- Section 6 Treatment Methods in Psychiatry
- 6.2 Somatic treatments
- Section 7 Social Psychiatry and Service Provision
- Section 8 The Psychiatry of Old Age
- Section 9 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry