One of the main diseases affecting our elderly population is dementia, or cognitive impairment. According to Webster's Dictionary, dementia is "a mental illness that prevents a person from thinking clearly or understanding what is real and what is not." In reality, dementia is much more than that, it is more clearly defined on the Alzheimer's Association website: “Dementia is not a specific disease. It is a general term that describes a wide range of symptoms associated with a decline in memory or other thinking skills severe enough to reduce a person's ability to perform daily activities. Dementia is most commonly seen in people over the age of 60, and as a person gets older, their risk of developing dementia increases. Because dementia is a very broad spectrum of illnesses, there are many different diagnostic symptoms that can indicate dementia. Symptoms can vary widely, but most are due to an inability to use different brain functions. The different brain functions that can be impaired in dementia are memory, language, the ability to concentrate, reasoning, judgment or visual perception. People with dementia also suffer from short-term memory loss. They don't remember little things like where their car keys are or if they had breakfast that day. This is where the symptoms begin, as dementia symptoms start rather slowly but gradually get worse over time. “Dementia is caused by damage to brain cells” (Alzheimer's Association 2014). When cells are damaged in a specific region of the brain, the brain cells cannot communicate with each other, these specific regions of the brain each perform different tasks... middle of paper .... ...we race to determine whether This is dementia. Although it is quite easy for the doctor to determine whether the patient has dementia, it is extremely difficult to determine what type of dementia it is because the symptoms the patient exhibits are constantly changing. The most common type of dementia is Alzheimer's disease. Dementia is a degenerative disease, most of which is permanent and irreversible. Although there is no cure for dementia, there are a number of different medications that doctors can prescribe to help the patient. These medications will not completely resolve the symptoms, but they will help improve the patient's lifestyle as much as possible. These medications that may be used to treat symptoms of dementia are antidepressants, antiolytics, or antipsychotics. A list of these drugs includes methylphenidate, risperidone and imipramine..