Abstract

CUSTODIO, Nilton; MONTESINOS, Rosa  and  ALARCON, Jorge O. Historical evolution of the concept and new diagnostic criteria for Dementia. Rev Neuropsiquiatr [online]. 2018, vol.81, n.4, pp.235-249. ISSN 0034-8597.  http://dx.doi.org/10.20453/rnp.v81i4.3438.

By the middle of the 19th Century the concept of Dementia, as an irreversible entity associated with the aging process, came into focus thanks to the work of Esquirol, who was one of the first to propose a descriptive approach to the clinical picture, and Bayle, who was the first to suggest that Dementia was an illness attributable to injuries of the Central Nervous System. Around 1900, Alois Alzheimer described the pathology of the injuries of two distinct entities, the first described by him, and the second by Arnold Pick (known today as Alzheimer´s Disease and Frontotemporal Dementia respectively). The advances in brain-imaging techniques and studies of cerebrospinal fluid led to improvements of the clinical diagnostic criteria for the diverse types of dementia, with a clinical- biological focus. Nevertheless, the most recent recommendations suggest Alzheimer´s disease to be approached from a purely biological focus.

Keywords : Dementia; diagnosis; Alzheimer disease; history.

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