With increasing aging and widespread medical science knowledge, older adults are gradually becoming a major group of excessive social concern. Most older adults may develop cognitive impairment as they age, which is often misdiagnosed as dementia in some primary care hospitals. Is cognitive impairment in the elderly a form of dementia? Can it be treated? Cognitive impairment involves a series of casual, psychological and social behaviors such as learning, memory, language, thinking, mental and emotional, etc. There are many clinical causes, such as: Alzheimer’s disease, normal pressure hydrocephalus, alcoholism caused by long-term drinking, autoimmune encephalitis, etc. Generally, the initial performance is memory loss, and in the late stage, all memory is missing and there are obvious fantasies. So cognitive impairment in the elderly is not necessarily dementia. Dementia mainly refers to Alzheimer’s disease, which is a degenerative disease of the nervous system, and other causes need to be excluded before the diagnosis can be confirmed. Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by cognitive decline, psychiatric symptoms and behavioral disturbances in the early stages and gait disturbances and urinary incontinence in the later stages. In modern medicine, Alzheimer’s disease is generally irreversible and can only be treated with medications to alleviate the symptoms or to stop the progression of the disease towards severity. In recent years, from clinical consultations, most elderly people with normal pressure hydrocephalus also have cognitive impairment, which may be accompanied by memory and calculation loss in mild cases, or in severe cases, they may not even remember their own names. Normal pressure hydrocephalus is a common disease that occurs in people over 65 years of age. The enlargement of the ventricles is usually evident on imaging, while the cerebrospinal fluid pressure is normal. In addition to significant cognitive impairment, this disease also has gait disturbances and urinary incontinence. Therefore, when an elderly person develops cognitive impairment, it is recommended to go to a hospital for further detailed examination and then take a targeted treatment plan based on the findings. If the diagnosis of normal pressure hydrocephalus is confirmed, there is no need to worry too much. Because normal pressure hydrocephalus is reversible, and then combined with the current advanced surgical procedures, patients can recover their health.