Nutrition and Cognitive Function in the Elderly

Dementia is the most common and disabling behavioral disorder of later life. Approximately 596 of those older than 65 years are seriously demented, with an additional 1096 suffering from mild degrees of dementia. It is an extremely costly syndrome in terms of the suffering of both patients and their families, as well as the massive public health resource allocation necessary to provide long-term care for the ever-increasing number of elderly demented persons who can no longer function at home. The essential feature of the dementia syndrome is the loss of cognitive function, particularly memory, secondary to an organic insult to brain structure and/or function. During the past decade, major advances have occurred in our understanding of dementia. The widespread belief that "senility" or nonspecific aging inevitably leads to dementia has yielded to the realization that specific disease entities, most notably Alzheimer's disease, underlie the dementia syndrome.1Research efforts in