What Is Senile Dementia?

As defined by the National Institutes of Health, dementia is a term used to describe a group of symptoms and not a specific disease. Senile dementia describes the geriatric population and usually occurs after age sixty.

Causes

• Several different diseases can cause dementia. Alzheimer's disease and a stroke can cause dementia.
  A history of dementia in the family is also significant

Symptoms

• Symptoms include memory loss and inability to perform daily tasks, such as eating, dressing and speaking.

Memory Loss

• The inability to remember events that just happened, also known as short term memory loss, is profound. The use of language is severely impaired, and the person with dementia may not be understood or understand what is said to them.

Disorientation

• A person with dementia may become lost in familiar surroundings. They may become lost, disoriented and unable to find their way home even when on their own street.

Personality

• Dementia may cause personality changes. Some people may become irritable or overly suspicious to the extreme of paranoia. Some people may exhibit very aggressive and hostile behavior.