Amnesia vs. dementia: What’s the difference and why does it matter?
If you’ve ever had a head injury and couldn’t remember what happened, you might have experienced some amnesia.
Amnesia means memory loss. There can be retrograde amnesia, forgetting information from the past, or anterograde amnesia, forgetting newly learned information.
What causes amnesia?
There are many disorders that can cause amnesia. The most common causes are:
- Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders
- Traumatic brain injury, including concussions
- Excessive alcohol consumption
- Certain medications like sedatives and some medications for anxiety, such as diazepam
- Strokes
- Infections of the brain, like encephalitis
- Brain tumors
Another cause of amnesia is a rare disorder called transient global amnesia where a person briefly – usually less than 24 hours – loses the ability to make new memories and loses some recent older memories. The cause is not known, but may have associations with migraines, vascular diseases or seizures.
What is the difference between amnesia and dementia?
Amnesia is a problem with making and retrieving memories that are typically newer in nature.
Dementia is a disorder with impairments in one or more cognitive domains which can include: learning and memory, language, executive functions, complex attention, and perceptual-motor or social functions. Dementia is most often associated with memory loss but can also be due to impairments in cognitive areas besides memory.
Is amnesia often a symptom of dementia?
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia, and it usually starts with memory loss. Sometimes Alzheimer’s disease, and other causes of dementia, presents with deficits in other cognitive areas.
For example, some people can develop progressive language loss, called progressive aphasia. They experience problems with language initially but may not have much memory loss. Other people with dementia can present changes in visual-spatial perception or changes in behavior as their initial symptoms.
A thorough evaluation by a specialist, such as a neurologist or geriatrician, can often determine the cause of your cognitive changes.
Dr. Darren Gitelman is a behavioral neurologist at Advocate Health Care.
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