Mayo Clinic expert explains why a change is needed when talking about dementia

One of the challenges in addressing Alzheimer's disease, dementia, cognitive impairment and aging is not related to the conditions themselves but rather the terminology. That’s according to Dr. Ronald Petersen, director of the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, who suggests a new framework for dementia nomenclature is needed. Inconsistent use of terms such as Alzheimer's disease and dementia has compromised progress in clinical care, research and development of therapeutics. Dementia-associated stigma further contributes to inconsistent and imprecise language.

"We sometimes use these terms inconsistently. That confuses us as scientists, and clinicians. It confuses our patients and our families. So we decided to take a look at that whole issue and see if we could understand the problem, and then make some recommendations," says Dr. Petersen.

In a recently published paper authored by Dr. Petersen, the Advisory Council on Alzheimer's Research, Care, and Services of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease authorized a committee to help bring consistency to the use of the terms.

What's the difference between Alzheimer's disease and dementia?

"Dementia is a clinical syndrome, which means that it has a set of clinical features of the disease. Alzheimer's disease, though, implies that there's an underlying biological cause of the dementia. Often we get these two terms confused," says Dr. Petersen.
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