• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 1997

Dementia is defined as a syndrome which is characterized by various impairments in cognitive functions, especially memory function. Most of the diagnostic criteria for dementia include memory impairment as on essential feature. Memory decline can be present as a consequence of the aging process. But it does not cause significant distress or impairment in social and occupational functionings while dementiadoes. Depression may also be associated with memory impairment. However, unlike dementia, depression dose not cause decrease in delayed verbal learning and recognition memory. In dementia, different features of memory impairment may be present depending on the involved area. Memory impairment in cortical dementia is affected by the disturbance of encoding of information and memory consolidation, while memory imparnene in subcortical denentiy is affected by the disturbance of retrieval in subcortical dementia.