Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Epidemiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment

Symptoms of memory loss include a deterioration in a range of cognitive abilities or a general cognitive decline, and not just a decline in memory. Clinicians can diagnose the syndromes of dementia (major neurocognitive disorder) and mild cognitive impairment (mild neurocognitive disorder) based on history, examination, and appropriate objective assessments, using standard criteria such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. They can then diagnose the etiological subtypes of these syndromes using standard criteria for each of them. Brain imaging and biomarkers are making progress in the differential diagnoses among the different disorders. Treatments are still mostly symptomatic.