menti-, ment- +

1. A progressive degenerative disease of the brain that causes impairment of memory and dementia manifested by confusion, visual-spatial disorientation, inability to calculate, and deterioration of judgment.
2. Etymology: although the origin of the concept of dementia goes as far back as the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers and physicians; it was in 1901 when Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915), a German neurologist, identified the first case of what became known as Alzheimer's disease which currently describes individuals of all ages with a characteristic common symptom pattern, disease course, and neuropathology.

Delusions and hallucinations may occur. The most common degenerative brain disorder, Alzheimer disease makes up 70% of all cases of dementia. Onset is usually in late middle life, and death typically takes place in five to ten years.

Synonyms: Alzheimer dementia, presenile dementia; dementia presenilis, primary senile dementia, primary neuronal degeneration.

Alzheimer disease ranks fourth as a cause of death in the U.S., and its annual cost to the nation is nearly $100 billion.

Onset is typically insidious, with a progressive deterioration in the ability to learn and retain information. In recalling and repeating new material, the patient makes intrusion errors (insertion of irrelevant words or ideas) and resorts to confabulation (fabrication of stories in response to questions about situations or events that are not recalled).

Orientation and judgment decline; 50% of patients experience depression, 20% delusions. Agitation occurs in 70%. Numerous drugs, including many not considered psychoactive, can aggravate the symptoms of Alzheimer disease; clinical depression can mask dementia, and vice versa.

Neurologic findings may be essentially normal, but myoclonus (condition of abnormal contraction of muscles or portions of muscles), bradykinesia (slow movements), rigidity, and seizures can occur late in the disease. Death is usually due to sepsis (blood stream infection or blood poisoning) associated with urinary or pulmonary infection.

1. Without normal mental abilities; such as, a congenital mental deficiency or mental retardation.
2. Mental disorder characterized by confusion, disorientation, and occasionally stupor.
3. Subnormal development of the mind, with particular reference to intellectual capacities; a type of severe mental retardation.

A reference to, or relating to, amentia.

1. Of sound mind, memory, and understanding; sane.
2. In law, competent to go to trial.
3. If someone is compos mentis, he/she is able to think clearly and is responsible for her/his actions: "My sister was quite old, when I last saw her, but she was definitely compos mentis."

1. Significant loss of intellectual abilities; such as, memory capacity, severe enough to interfere with social or occupational functioning.
2. A rarely used term for dementia.

Being out of one's mind.

From dement, to cause to become mad, raving, crazy; literally, "out of one's mind".

Legally, a form of mental disorder in which cognitive and intellectual functions of the mind are prominently affected; impairment of memory is an early sign; total recovery is thought to be impossible since organic cerebral disease is involved.

A related term is dementia praecox which is a term used to include a wide range of mental disorders that occur in early life.

It is also called adolescent insanity and schizophrenia. Dementia praecox includes three types: primary dementia, catatonia, and hebephrenia.

1. Mentally ill; insane.
2. Suffering from dementia or a loss of cognitive function.

1. In an insane manner: "She could be heard screaming dementedly."
2. Unable to think or act clearly when someone is extremely worried, angry, or excited by something.

1. The loss, usually progressive, of cognitive and intellectual functions, without impairment of perception or consciousness; caused by a variety of disorders, (structural or degenerative) but most commonly associated with structural brain disease.
2. An acquired organic mental disorder with loss of intellectual abilities of sufficient severity to interfere with social or occupational functioning.

The dysfunction is multifaceted and involves memory, behavior, personality, judgment, attention, spatial relations, language, abstract thought, and other executive functions. The intellectual decline is usually progressive, and initially spares the level of consciousness.

1. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (any degenerative disease of the brain).

A syndrome due to cumulative head blows absorbed in the boxing ring, characterized by general slowing of mental function, occasional bouts of confusion, and scattered memory loss. It may progress to the more serious boxer's dementia.

2. Dementia resulting from cumulative damage sustained over some years in boxing, resulting in slowed thinking, memory loss, dysarthria (speech that is characteristically slurred, slow, and difficult to produce; and so, difficult to understand), and other movement disorders.
3. A condition seen in boxers (and alcoholics), caused by repeated cerebral concussions and characterized by weakness in the lower limbs, unsteadiness of gait, slowness of muscular movements, hand tremors, hesitancy of speech, and mental dullness.

Dementia pugilistica, also called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, pugilistic Parkinson's syndrome, boxer's dementia, and punch-drunk syndrome, is a neurological disorder which affects some career boxers and others who receive multiple blows to the head.

The condition develops over a period of years, with the average time of onset being about sixteen years after the start of a career in boxing.

A fear of being insane.

Pseudodementia or pseudoimbecility, based primarily on psychological factors.

Mind, soul, body.

A motto of Colby-Sawyer College, New London, New Hampshire, USA.

Mind moves the mass.

Another version, "Mind animates matter." From the writings of Virgil; motto of the (Universitas Oregonensis) University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA; as well as, Rossall School, U.K.

Mind and hand.

A motto of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.