Pick’s disease, or frontal lobe dementia, is another possible culprit behind the symptoms. This type of dementia usually occurs earlier than the other kinds of dementia, with onset common in the 40s. Because the frontal lobe, which controls behavior and emotion, is affected, Pick’s disease is usually characterized by personality or behavioral changes.

Patients with late stage Huntington’s disease often show signs of dementia, as the disease begins destroying brain cells. Parkinson’s disease in some patients leads to dementia in its last stages as well.

HIV infection can cause dementia as soon as two days after exposure to the virus. This type of dementia is called AIDS Dementia Complex (ADC). Another possible virus linked to dementia is Creutzfeldt-Jakobs Disease (CJD). CJD gained notoriety in the 1990s in the UK as so called “mad cow disease” and the fear over contaminated beef causing the disease. The actual evidence of mad cow disease causing a CJD outbreak is tenuous at best – in fact, at this point, scientists are not even sure CJD is actually caused by a virus, or if that virus is caused by mad cow disease.

Other causes of dementia are easier to identify and in some cases, even avoid. Alcohol dependency can lead to dementia as a disease called Korsakoff’s syndrome. Korsakoff’s syndrome leads to short-term memory loss and is thought to be caused by a vitamin B1 deficiency in alcoholics. Long-term drug addiction may also cause dementia, and even some over the counter drugs cause dementia if a patient has a bad reaction to them. Hormone imbalances, such as those caused by Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis/hypothyrodism, can cause dementia, as can vitamin imbalances. Severe cases of depression cause patients to experience memory related problems, and any variety of infection or virus present in a patient’s system, including encephalitis, meningitis, or syphilis, can present symptoms of dementia. Additionally, head injury victims may also experience dementia.

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