Board certified in both neurology and neurovascular neurology, Dr. Stephen J Marks works as a vascular neurologist at the Neurology Associates of Westchester in Hawthorne, New York. Dr. Stephen J Marks is also an expert on strokes and skilled in dementia disorders.
Many people think that dementia and Alzheimer’s are interchangeable terms, but these two disorders are actually not the same thing. Dementia is a syndrome and not a disease, with a syndrome referring to a group of symptoms that doesn’t have a definitive diagnosis. Alzheimer’s disease can certainly fall under the larger dementia umbrella, but these two terms are most definitely not interchangeable.
Although Alzheimer’s disease does account for around 50-70 percent of dementia cases, that leaves a large number of other cases that are not associated with Alzheimer’s disease at all. Vascular dementia can occur after a patient experiences either several “silent strokes” or one major stroke, while dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) can occur after microscopic deposits of a protein (Lewy bodies) form in the person’s cortex. Meanwhile, Parkinson’s disease dementia usually develops about 10 years after the initial onset of Parkinson’s disease, occurring about 50 to 80 percent of the time.
Many people think that dementia and Alzheimer’s are interchangeable terms, but these two disorders are actually not the same thing. Dementia is a syndrome and not a disease, with a syndrome referring to a group of symptoms that doesn’t have a definitive diagnosis. Alzheimer’s disease can certainly fall under the larger dementia umbrella, but these two terms are most definitely not interchangeable.
Although Alzheimer’s disease does account for around 50-70 percent of dementia cases, that leaves a large number of other cases that are not associated with Alzheimer’s disease at all. Vascular dementia can occur after a patient experiences either several “silent strokes” or one major stroke, while dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) can occur after microscopic deposits of a protein (Lewy bodies) form in the person’s cortex. Meanwhile, Parkinson’s disease dementia usually develops about 10 years after the initial onset of Parkinson’s disease, occurring about 50 to 80 percent of the time.
