Dementia

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ght that dementia was a distinct abnormal entity, and thus he used the term dementia to designate one of the five classes of mental derangement. However, by applying the term dementia to 'idiots', Pinel failed to differentiate between dementia and mental sub-normality. This was accomplished by Pinel's student Esquirol in 1838. Esquirol summed up the difference between the demented and the mentally handicapped in the following epigram: "The dement is a man deprived of the possessions he once enjoyed, he is a rich man who has become poor. But the defective has been penniless and wretched all his life" (Mahendra, 10). Furthermore, Esquirol was also instrumental in the popularisation of the term senile dementia. Remarkably, his description of senile dementia is very similar to our present day definition.
Much of today's basic knowledge about dementia was accumulated throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, and the first decade of the twentieth century. 1872 saw Huntington present a paper called "On chorea", in which he discuss...