Does alcohol abuse cause dementia?
There is no unequivocal evidence for a brain lesion in humans that is caused solely by chronic ethanol ingestion and that is unrelated to coexisting nutritional deficiency, cerebrovascular disease, liver disease, or trauma. Chronic alcohol abuse is associated with a number of organic brain syndromes including Wernickes encephalopathy, Korsakoff’s syndrome, alcoholic dementia and cerebellar degeneration. Approximately 50 to 70 percent of alcohol abusers have cognitive deficits on neuropsychological testing. Wernicke’s encephalopathy is a common, acute neurologic disorder caused by thiamine deficiency. It is manifested by a clinical triad of encephalopathy, oculomotor dysfunction, and gait ataxia. Korsakoff’s syndrome is a late, neuropsychiatric manifestation of Wernicke’s encephalopathy in which there is a striking disorder of selective anterograde and retrograde amnesia with intact sensorium, and relative preservation of other cognitive skills. Some alcohol abusers exhibit a more globa
