This category contains a range of diseases affecting the central nervous system.

See also Map 48 Multiple sclerosis and Map 56 Motor neurone disease.

Scotland, rural north west England and the south of England generally have low rates of death from other nervous disorders. Higher rates are found in the remainder of the north of England, the Midlands and Wales. Particular clusters are found around Cardiff and Yorkshire.

Recently (ICD-10) two thirds of the deaths in this category have been attributed to Alzheimer’s disease; over the 24-year period studied here, 41% of the deaths in this category were attributed to Alzheimer’s. It is progressive and terminal. The disease usually starts with mild cognitive impairment, such as short-term memory loss. The disease is named after a German psychiatrist who first identified it in 1901. Before ICD-10 it was not often recorded as the primary cause of death, but just as a contributory factor.

Other causes in this group include encephalitis, intracranial and intraspinal abscess and granuloma, Huntington’s disease, infantile cerebral palsy, hemiplegia, paraplegia and tetraplegia.

Prime MInister Harold Wilson, US President Ronald Reagan and novelist Iris Murdoch had Alzheimer’s disease; folk musician Woody Guthrie died of Huntington’s disease.