Emergency Medicine Reports – September 6, 2015
September 6, 2015
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Evaluating Dementia and Delirium in the Emergency Department
The term dementia is derived from the Latin word for “out of one’s mind.” It describes a deterioration of intellectual faculties, which may include memory, attention, learning, and judgment, and can be accompanied by emotional disturbance and personality changes. It is most often a result of a neurodegenerative process, such as Alzheimer’s disease, but also can be caused by more than 50 different diseases and disorders, including strokes, trauma, infectious diseases, and metabolic disorders.