Psychopathology of Dementia: Psychology’s Pivotal Role

Abstract

Biology does not completely explain dementia. We can neither predict nor confirm a diagnosis of dementia based purely on its biology. Recent studies looking at prevention using social interventions hold better promise for ameliorating the disease. Yet, we do not have a major theory to explain these outcomes without resorting to biology. By understanding that there are mediating and moderating psychological factors promoting dementia, we take a broader view of the disease than a simple binary approach. Psychology plays a vital role in this clinical disease, in how cognition affects dementia. The presumption is that all of cognition: perception, orientation, novelty, attention, the application of knowledge (praxis), calculation, language, abstract thinking, and memory can affect and bring about dementia. It is not dementia that causes cognitive decline but cognitive decline that causes dementia. The psychopathology of dementia can initiate dementia, moderate it by enhancing or retarding the progression of the disease or mediate the disease by acting as a confirmatory process. The tipping point expressed by apathy and depression heralds a change in cognition. The psychopathology of dementia is important in understanding the etiology of dementia as it holds the most promising avenue for curing some dementias.