Alcoholic dementia, or ARD, a currently preferred term, remains a controversial diagnosis because of confounding syndromes such as WE and HE. Nevertheless, certain clinically distinguishing features of ARD exist. It often occurs in socially isolated men at younger ages of onset (i.e., younger than age 65) than other types of dementia (Draper et al. 2011a; Ridley et al. 2013); deficits in visuospatial, executive, and memory functions (Schmidt et al. 2005); slower progression compared with other types of dementia (Gupta and Warner 2008); and partial reversibility (Oslin and Cary 2003). ARD is considered a frontal dementia (Stewart 2006). In support of such categorization, forensic evaluation of a sample of alcoholic brains noted a consistent pattern of synaptic loss in the superior laminae of the frontal cortex (i.e., Brodmann area 10), not related to liver disease (Brun and Andersson 2001).
