Difference Between Dementia and Amnesia

Dementia vs amnesia

Suffering from a mental illness is a tragedy. It’s not what people experience or encounter on a day-to-day basis, but if you were to choose between two mental ailments, dementia or amnesia, which one would you want to suffer? This sounds like a Facebook personality-check question and nobody in their sound mind would want to suffer from either. But consider the possibility. If you were to suffer from a mental disorder, and you were to choose, which one would it be?

The following is a breakdown of the characteristics of people suffering from dementia or amnesia and they would be the factors to consider in making that choice above.

Dementia in Latin means madness. Dementia is defined as the serious loss of a person’s ability to think properly. It is not a disease per se, but a series of symptoms that could lead to other serious ailments such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. Symptoms of dementia are a decrease in the person’s memory, problem solving ability, language, and attention. It may be caused by a lot of factors, such as: a serious and sudden head injury, a reduction or cut off of blood and oxygen supply to the brain caused by stroke, an infection affecting the brain, drug and alcohol abuse, seizures or epilepsy, and many other factors. Dementia is curable when the cause of the problem is depression, hormonal imbalances, vitamin deficiencies and drug and alcohol abuse. It is incurable if it is caused by a disease or a serious injury.

The common symptoms related to this cognitive problem are: (1.) recent memory loss. It is normal that a person occasionally forgets where they placed the car keys and then finds them later on, but a person with dementia rarely remembers what they recently did. This person keeps forgetting to remember. (2.) Difficulty paying attention. Demented people usually forget the purpose of what they’re doing. They even lose focus when trying to remember that they’re doing something. (3.) Problems with communication. People with dementia have difficulty with communication, making them so hard to understand. Other symptoms include: time and place disorientation, poor judgment and rapid mood Swings.

Amnesia, on the other hand, is a condition wherein the memory of a person is lost or disturbed. It can be caused by a lot of factors. These factors include: post-traumatic stress, defense mechanism, or mental disorder. Amnesia comes in different forms, all depending on its cause. There’s childhood amnesia or what Sigmund Freud called sexual repression; Lacunar amnesia or the loss of recounting memories about one specific event; dissociative amnesia which is caused by psychological, traumatic events that the patients wanted to shut out from their brain; post traumatic amnesia, caused by accidents that injured the head, and others. These can be treated with psychotherapy, such as hypnosis, or drug administered medication. Other amnesia can be treated with rehabilitation, abstinence from alcohol and drugs, and full love and support form the family involved.

The common symptoms associated with amnesia include difficulty absorbing or learning new information, problems recalling the past episodes of life, problems occurring in social settings, and sometimes, supervised living situation because of the severity of the memory problem.

SUMMARY:

1. Dementia is not a disease but a series of symptoms that leads to serious mental diseases. Amnesia on the other hand, is a serious mental condition affecting a person’s memory.
2. Symptoms of dementia could affect a person’s memory. But it generally affects a person’s decision making. Amnesia on the other hand is a serious form of memory loss, but it does not generally affect the patient’s decision making.
3. Dementia is treatable, but it depends on the cause of the disorder. Amnesia is treatable in so many different ways, whatever the cause of the condition is.

4. Amnesia is not a symptom. It could be forced, like childhood amnesia. Dementia, on the other hand, is purely the effect of so many factors. Â

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