Dementia is a mental disorder characterised by persistent and continuous personality disintegration accompanied by confusion, disorientation and, in progressed cases stupor. Judgement memory and impulses are impaired, intellectual capacity deteriorates and sufferers find it increasingly hrder to differentiate between fact and fiction.

Although the majority of cases are found in elderly people there are many causes, other than old age, of dementia, drug intoxication, hyperthyroidism, tumours, trauma to the brain to mention but a few. Many of these can be reversed by treatment but Alzheimer's and other organic forms are regarded to be incurable and can only be arrested or slowed down.