[Cognitive symptoms in an elderly patient--maintaining the functional capacity is always important].

In primary health care, elderly patients having problems in their ability to deal with information are increasingly encountered as a result of lessened institutional care and altered population structure. The most common causes of cognitive problems in the elderly include delusional disorder, various progressive memory diseases and delirium. Treatment of cognitive problems is multidisciplinary collaboration, and maintaining the functional capacity is important at all stages of the disease. Memory disorder medications clearly increase the time of functional capacity, provided that their use is started early enough. Pharmacologic therapy of behavioral symptoms requires expertise, and easily emerging drawbacks frequently exceed the benefits of the medications.