Cognitive impairment is general term used to describe a mental disorder that causes problems with performing daily activities and living a normal life. Because there is a lack of agreement about a specific definition of cognitive impairment, those who have been diagnosed with cognitive impairment may have significantly differing symptoms. There is a wide range of possible causes, and recommendations for treatment may also vary from one health professional to the next.
Symptoms of Cognitive Impairment
There are many different symptoms that a person with a cognitive impairment may have.
– Forgetfulness: Forgetfulness includes loss of memory or problems concentrating. Amnesia is a common type of forgetfulness in which a person is unable to store new information and recall past information is lost.
– Difficulty concentrating: Concentration difficult may be associated with memory issues such as forgetfulness or sleeping difficulty.
– Confusion: This symptom of cognitive impairment includes impaired thinking and often anxiety.
– Disorientation: This is associated with feelings of loss or being unsure of location.
– Dementia: Dementia is a significant loss of mental capabilities, particularly memory, language, attention, and problem solving.
– Delirium: This is a severe state of mental confusion, stressfulness, inattentiveness, or agitation.
– Learning disability: A learning disability is associated with developmental problems that hinder learning.
– Mental retardation: This cognitive impairment symptom is when there is reduced intellectual functioning that occurs during the developmental period.
– Delusions: Delusions are inappropriate or irrational beliefs.
– Paranoia: Paranoia is a type of delusion when a person strongly believes, irrationally, that someone is going to him or her physically, mentally, op even emotionally.
– Hallucinations: Hallucinations are false perceptions of any of the senses.
– Disorganization: This symptom of cognitive impairment is an inability to be organized; it is much more severe than the common problems of everyday life.
– Indecision: Indecision is the inability to make decisions and choices; it is may be associated with agitation and stress.
Causes of Cognitive Impairment
Because cognitive impairment is widely debatable, there are many conditions that may be the cause of cognitive impairment in a person.
– Mental retardation: Mental retardation is when there is reduced intellectual functioning that occurs during the developmental period.
– Down syndrome: This is a genetic syndrome that affects physical features of a person and causes a type of mental retardation.
– Learning disorders: Learning disorders are associated with developmental problems that hinder learning.
– Brain conditions
o Cerebral palsy: This cause of cognitive impairment is a birth injury that affects physical motor ability but not mental ability.
o Stroke: A stroke is serious brain injury due to internal bleeding or blood clots that damage brain tissue.
o Brain damage: Brain damage is the destruction of brain cells due to a wide range of conditions, injuries, or illnesses.
o Head injury: This is a traumatic injury to the head that affects the skull or brain.
o Brain diseases: Medical conditions that affect the brain due to brain disease, injury, or drug abuse.
o Tertiary syphilis: The last phase of the bacterial disease syphilis, which increases the risk of HIV and AIDS.
– Physical diseases
o Vitamin deficiency: This happens when not enough vitamins are consumed, causing several problems in the body.
o Liver disease: A disease that affects the liver and may cause it to not remove toxins properly from the body.
o Kidney disease: This disease affects the kidneys ability to help filter waste and toxins out of the body.
o Alcoholism: Alcoholism is a cause of cognitive impairment due to mental and physical addictions to alcohol.