I have progressive vascular dementia

Interesting facts about dementia

·                     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.