Criteria

The diagnosis of dementia is a clinical diagnosis where the doctor will examine whether the specific criteria for dementia are met.

The next step is to determine the cause of the dementia.

The Criteria for a Diagnosis of Dementia

• Significant memory failure (see below).
• Failure of another cognitive function, either attention, thinking, language or sense of direction (see below).
• The patient's ability to perform daily tasks (so-called activities of daily living or ADL functions) must be affected.
• The person must not have delirium or confusion.
• There must either be signs that the disease has a physical cause (a blood clot in the brain, for example), or the doctor must also be certain that there it is not a psychiatric disease (depression, for example).

Memory Failure

Memory failure must be significant compared to previously. That means that the doctor must be able to detect it in memory tests where the person must perform significantly worse than healthy people their age with the same educational level. In case of doubt, and where the memory failure in the person is only slight and they manage fairly well in everyday life, it may be necessary for  a neuropsychological examination.

Additional Cognitive Symptoms

At least one additional cognitive function must be affected. It could, for example, be language, sense of orientation, ability to plan and structure things (also called the executive function) or the ability to perform practical tasks. Just as with memory failure, the failure must be to such a degree that it can be detected in tasks or tests, and it must be significant compared to healthy people their age of the same educational level.