Recognizing Dementia in Early Stage

Lucky Saputra
Psychiatric Department, Faculty of Medicine Universitas Padjadjaran /Dr. Hasan Sadikin
General Hospital Bandung, Indonesia

The number of older people in the population is increasing due to significant increased in life
expectancy and improvement in many areas of health. The increase will be accompanied by
a significant rise of morbidity. Amongst the morbidities, dementia are commonly found in
elderly population. Dementia is a syndrom that is not a normal part of the aging process. By
definition, dementia is the decline and progressive worsening of one or more cognitive
functions (e.g., memory, attention, language, visual perception, reasoning) and/or
comportment (e.g., characteristic personality traits, insight, judgment, social cognition), from
a prior, customary level of functioning, to the point where usual activities of daily living are
negatively affected; caused by irreversible brain disease. The clinical features make up the
diagnostic criteria are all continuous and affected by many other factors. At this point
understandably, the health, social, and societal systems see a costly and distressing situation
which early detection may have averted. Early detection is essential because in all
neurodegenerative disease because it is known that the degenerative pathologic process is
well under way years before symptom onset. Early diagnosis and disclosure are important for
patients and their families for deciding on present treatment and for future planning. The
critical first step for diagnosing dementia is the mental status examination, followed by a
brief assessment of multiple aspects of the patients behavioral, psychological, daily, and
cognitive functioning. Clinical and neuropsychological tools for the early diagnosis and the
staging of dementia very useful to be applied in daily practice. This paper aims to overview
the modalities to recognize dementia in early stage.

Keywords : Dementia, Early Stage