[The impact of the cognitive impairment].

Cognitive impairment has a significant medical, social and economic impact. In the aging population there is an increase in the incidence of age-related, chronic, not transmissible pathologies. Among them, an outstanding place is occupied by entities that affect the brain and cause cognitive and behavioral disorders. Neurodegeneration, the main cause of these disorders, is an intrinsic neuronal process ensued from different interacting mechanisms that alter cellular structure and function. As a result, the physiopathologic process of cognitive impairment is partially known, with the consequent lack of antipathogenic medication. Late consultation and diagnosis are consequences of both cultural factors and low medical awareness. The high direct and indirect costs generated by the dementia, maximum expression of the cognitive impairment, strike hardly on patients, family and health systems. Medical and sociosanitary education, prevention by means of the modification of risk factors and the suitable use of symptomatic therapeutic resources are today's available weapons to face the problem.