Dementia is an Intersectional Neuropathology: A Review - Abstract
Dementia is an increasing health problem in an aging population with over 10 million patients with the diagnosis in the US. In the several disease variations characterized by dementia there are common clinical and histological findings, suggesting shared underlying neuronal deficiencies and clinical outcome. Observations support the notion that any of several mechanisms may cause a loss of neuron function, progressing to dementia. In this review we summarize evidence leading to the conclusion that defects in separate neuronal processes are additive, leading to the clinical manifestation of dementia as a result of cumultive defects in discrete cellular functions. Therefore we conclude that the manifstations of dementia are the result of an intersection of defects.