Agitation (dementia)

Agitation in predementia and dementia is distressed affect that leads to poor moods and often aggression toward other people, such as family members and other caregivers. Agitation is often part of dementia and often precedes the diagnosis of common age-related disorders of cognition such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). More than 80% of people who develop AD eventually become agitated or aggressive.^[1] Agitation in dementia overlaps with psychomotor agitation but is not always equal to it, depending on whose definition is used. Although some authorities consider them synonymous,^[2] psychomotor agitation by definition ("-motor") involves maladaptive movements, whereas agitation in predementia and dementia often involves distress, fear, and aggression even when repetitive purposeless movements (such as pacing) are absent. The synonymy viewpoint views the whole topic as a single spectrum in which repetitive purposeless movements may arise or not, or recede, at various times.