1. The loss, usually progressive, of cognitive and intellectual functions, without impairment of perception or consciousness; caused by a variety of disorders, (structural or degenerative) but most commonly associated with structural brain disease.
2. An acquired organic mental disorder with loss of intellectual abilities of sufficient severity to interfere with social or occupational functioning: Dementia is a dysfunction which is multifaceted and involves memory, behavior, personality, judgment, attention, spatial relations, language, abstract thoughts, and other functions.

The intellectual decline of dementia is usually progressive and it initially does not interfere with the level of consciousness.

1. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (any degenerative disease of the brain): A dementia pugilistica is a syndrome resulting from cumulative head blows absorbed in the boxing ring, which is characterized by general slowing of mental function, occasional bouts of confusion, and scattered memory loss. It may progress to the more serious boxer's dementia.

2. Dementia resulting from cumulative damage sustained over some years in boxing, resulting in slowed thinking, memory loss, dysarthria (speech that is characteristically slurred, slow, and difficult to produce, and therefore difficult to understand), and other movement disorders: Dementia pugilistica, also called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, pugilistic Parkinson's syndrome, boxer's dementia, and punch-drunk syndrome, is a neurological disorder which affects some career boxers and others who receive multiple blows to the head.
3. A condition seen in boxers (and alcoholics), caused by repeated cerebral concussions and characterized by weakness in the lower limbs, unsteadiness of gait, slowness of muscular movements, hand tremors, hesitancy of speech, and mental dullness: The condition of dementia pugilistica develops over a period of years, with the average time of onset being about sixteen years after the start of a career in boxing.

Any of several degenerative conditions of the frontal and anterior temporal lobes that cause personality and behavioral changes sometimes mistaken for those of Alzheimer's disease and may eventually progress to immobility and loss of speech.

There isn't the memory loss seen in Alzheimer's disease, but there is often hyperorality (the excessive placing of inedible objects into the mouth).

Dementia that is brought on by a series of strokes.

1. Muscular weakness or partial inability to move caused by disease of the nervous system.
2. Slight or partial paralysis; general paralysis.

A form of neurosyphilis (syphilis affecting the central nervous system; the brain and spinal cord). Also known as general paresis, neurolues, acute syphilitic meningitis, meningovascular syphilis, tabes dorsalis, and the great pox.

It was first recognized in Europe as a distinct epidemic in Naples in the late 1400s coincident with the invasion of Naples by the French. The dispersal of the debauched French mercenary army throughout Western Europe led to the frighteningly fast spread of the new disease.

Paresis resulting from untreated syphilis usually develops in the third to fifth decade, but it may occur at an early age in patients with congenital syphilis.

Dementia of Alzheimer disease developing before age 65.

A form of brain disorder marked by unusually accelerated and progressive, irreversible mental deterioration: Senile dementia is often associated with declining people who appear to experience memory loss, forgetfulness, and disorientation.

Chronic brain disorder with the loss of intellectual functioning resulting from a severe cerebral injury.

A common form of dementia in older persons that is due to cerebrovascular disease, usually with step-by-step deterioration from a series of small strokes and a patchy distribution of neurologic deficits affecting some functions and not others.

Risk factors include high blood pressure, an unsteady way of walking, and advanced age.

Symptoms include confusion, problems with recent memory, wandering or getting lost in familiar places, loss of bladder or bowel control (incontinence), emotional problems; such as, laughing or crying inappropriately, difficulty following instructions, and problems handling money.