什麼是老年癡呆?

      Dementia is a progressive, irreversible syndrome, which affects the intellectual abilities such as memory, attention, orientation, judgment, language, motor and spatial skills, severe enough to interfere with social or occupational functioning. There are not any medicines to cure dementia. Dementia is most common among people around 65 years of age or older.       Many disorders can be generated from this particular syndrome, such as Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, and frontotemporal dementia. Dementia has a tremendous impact on people; eventually they lose their ability for independent living and die. Not only does dementia have an impact on patients themselves, it also has a significant effect on the family.      Clinical diagnosis of dementia is that people with two or more cognitive deficits and these impairments are severe enough to impact on an individual's daily life. It is also very important to have corroborative evidence from their family.      老年癡呆是一種喪失智力能力的綜合症狀，它是一個逐漸惡化，不可逆轉的綜合症狀。老年癡呆症狀可以影響到人們的智力能力如記憶力，注意力，方位，判斷能力，語言能力，運動和空間識別技能，這些智力能力的喪失嚴重到影響一個人的社交和工作能力。目前爲止，還沒有任何藥物可以治癒老年癡呆症狀。老年癡呆病症的病發率在65歲或是更大的歲數人中是比較普遍的。     很多疾病都源於老年癡呆綜合症狀，如阿爾茨海默病，血管性癡呆，路易體癡呆和額顳癡呆。老年癡呆綜合病症對人們的生活有很大的影響，得此症狀的人最終會失去生活的自理能力，和死亡。老年癡呆綜合病症不僅會給病人帶來巨大的生活變動，也會影響病人的家人和親屬的生活。     老年癡呆的臨牀診斷：人們有兩種或是兩種以上的認知能力缺陷，而且這些缺陷已經嚴重到影響他們的日常生活，那麼這些人就會被診斷患有老年癡呆病症。當然，家屬對於病人認知能力下降的察覺也是診斷此症狀的關鍵。