Cognitive changes of aging and dementia

However, aging is not related to a general decline in intellectual abilities. Losses occur mainly in areas of performance that are directly dependent on intact sensory and motor abilities. Older persons also tend to encounter difficulties when called upon to perform cognitive and other tasks under pressure of time. The subjective significance of a task and a person s familiarity with the conditions under which performance is evaluated are further factors that assume greater importance in older people than in the young. 

When an elderly, physically healthy person shows a generalized decline in cognitive functioning that causes significant impairment in social or occupational functioning and represents a significant decline from a previous 

The cluneal hallmark of AD is gradual and irreversible cognitive decline. This manifests initially with symptoms of memory failure and mild cognitive 

Dementia due to AD steadily worsens, typically over the course of about 10 years, but survival in some patients may be as short as 3 4 years. In late stages AD leads to what is sometimes called a vegetative state, Le. the patient is bedfast and totally dependent on others for all basic living activities. Patients with AD typically die from bronchitis or pneumonia. Risk factors of AD are age, female gender and presence of the apolipoprotein c4 (APO e4) allele. Higher levels of education, moderate levels of daily wine consumption and higher levels of fish in the diet have been associated with a lower risk for AD (Cummings and Cole, 2002). 

The symptoms of AD are not restricted to the cognitive domain but include the following  

---