Summary
Highlights
Delirium is characterized by impaired consciousness and cognition appearing over hours or days, affecting attention, memory, and language. Causes include drug withdrawal, infection, or brain injuries. Treatment involves antipsychotic drugs like haloperidol or olanzapine and psychosocial interventions using familiar personal belongings.
Major neurocognitive disorders involve gradual brain functioning deterioration impacting memory, judgment, and language. Mild neurocognitive disorders represent early stages of cognitive decline where individuals maintain independence. Agnosia is the inability to recognize objects, including facial agnosia which is the inability to recognize familiar faces.
Alzheimer's disease features gradually developing cognitive deficits in memory, orientation, judgment, language, and reasoning. Individuals struggle with new information and associations, forgetting events and becoming socially isolated. Symptoms include aphasia (impaired language), agnosia (inability to recognize objects), and apraxia (impaired motor functioning), progressing to agitation, anxiety, depression, and confusion.
Vascular neurocognitive disorder is a progressive brain disorder resulting from strokes. CTE is repetitive neurodegeneration caused by head trauma, especially concerning in contact sports like football, leading to damage to the frontal cortex and subsequent personality, language, judgment, and behavioral issues.
Frontal temporal neurocognitive disorder involves brain damage to the frontal or temporal lobes, affecting personality, language, judgment, and behavior. Pick's disease is a rare, genetically linked condition similar to Alzheimer's with an onset typically between ages 40-50.
TBI causes lasting brain injuries from severe head trauma, leading to neurocognitive disorders if symptoms persist for at least a week, resulting in executive dysfunction and memory problems. Lewy body disease involves microscopic protein deposits damaging brain cells, causing gradual impairment in alertness, attention, motor function, and hallucinations.
Parkinson's disease is characterized by stooped posture, slow movements, tremors, jerking in walking, and a soft, monotone voice due to dopamine motor pathway damage. HIV-1 can cause neurocognitive impairment affecting attention, cognitive slowness, forgetfulness, clumsiness, repetitive movements, tremors, weak legs, apathy, and social withdrawal.
Huntington's disease is a genetic disorder causing involuntary limb movements (chorea); it is an autosomal dominant disorder with individuals living up to 20 years after symptom onset. Prion disease is a fatal neurodegeneration caused by prions, which are proteins that damage brain cells, leading to neurocognitive decline, with no known treatment. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a known prion disease potentially linked to 'mad cow disease'.
This disorder results from the consumption of alcohol, drugs, or inhalants, leading to various impairments such as aphasia, apraxia, agnosia, and executive dysfunction.