Dementia
A Dictionary of Law · Henry Campbell Black · 1891
A Dictionary of Law
In medical jurisprudence. That form of insanity where the mental derangement is accompanied with a general derangement of the faculties. It is characterized by forgetfulness, inability to follow any train of thought, and indifference to passing events. 4 Sawy. 677, per Field, J. Senile dementia is that peculiar decay of the mental faculties which occurs in extreme old age, and in many cases much earlier, whereby the person is reduced to second childhood, and becomes sometimes wholly incompetent to enter into any binding contract, or even to execute a will. It is the recurrence of second childhood by mere decay.
1 Redf. Wills, 63.
Dementia denotes an impaired state of the mental powers, a feebleness of mind caused by disease, and not accompanied by delusion or uncontrollable impulse, without defining the degree of incapacity. Dementia may exist without complete prostration of the mental powers.
44 N. H. 581.