2010 BC Guide in Determining Fitness to Drive

i. aphasia (language disturbance)ii. apraxia (impaired ability to carry out motor activities despite intact motorfunction)iii. agnosia (failure to recognize or identify objects despite intact sensoryfunction, andiv. disturbance in executive functioning (e.g., planning, organizing,sequencing, abstracting).B. The cognitive deficits in criteria A (1) and (2) each cause significant impairment in socialor occupational functioning and represent a significant decline from a previous level offunctioning.C. The deficits do not occur exclusively during the course of a delirium.D. The deficits are not better accounted for by another Axis I disorder 19 (e.g. MajorDepressive Episode, Schizophrenia).Dementia has many causes and more than 100 types of dementia have been documented. Thefive most common types of dementia are: Alzheimer’s disease vascular dementia (multi-infarct dementia) mixed Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia dementia with Lewy bodies (Lewy body dementia), and frontotemporal dementia (Pick’s disease or Pick’s complex). Frontotemporal dementia maynot meet all of the criteria noted for dementia, especially in the early stages, but may stillresult in significant functional impairment.These types of dementia are all progressive and irreversible, and are characterized byimpairments in multiple cognitive functions.In Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, the earliest cognitive symptomsinclude difficulties in: recent memory word finding confrontation naming orientation, and concentration.In later stages: slowed rates of information processing attentional deficits disturbances in executive functions, and impairments in language, perception and praxisare characteristic.19 This refers to the classification of psychiatric disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of MentalDisorders (DSM-IV-TR). See Chapter 19, Psychiatric Disorders, for more information on this classification system.335