Dementia or mental illness – how are they different?

Nevertheless, the impact on family caregivers can be just as heart breaking, often feeling helpless as far as alleviating the frightening reality when their loved one’s experience delusions and paranoia.

While both mental health conditions affect cognition and interfere with various activities of daily life, dementia is a degenerative neurological disease caused by damage to the brain cells while mental illness is caused by an imbalance in brain chemistry, namely neurotransmitters. Dementia usually affects middle-aged and older adults whereas a mental illness generally develops in early adulthood. While there is a genetic component to some psychiatric disorders, there is no evidence of a similar link with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia. Unfortunately, there is no cure for these disorders, but a wide range of medications are available that provide relief from symptoms and improve quality of life.

As our population ages, it is important to ensure that seniors experiencing cognitive decline or changes in mood and behaviour receive the correct diagnosis in order to access the right treatment, therapy, and care to enable them to live their lives as fully as possible.