When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things.
Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway.
The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clumsy on that) but just after killing him he goes into "Yes master I'll do whatever you say" which from a normal point of view will NEVER ever make sense.
In both cases it seems like the assumption is once you use the Dark Side you completely turn to the Dark Side and become a different person that you were before. That would be coherent with Anakin "dying" and Vader being born.
Is that the way the Dark Side works? Is there any canon information about what happens when someone turns to the Dark Side? Specifically to whether they become a different person or how he or she actually changes?
Note: Vader is angry after he finds out Padme is dead, even though he's already turned.
Example of what I mean. In Buffy they explain how people that turn into Vampires lose their soul and it's taken over by a demon, and thus they are, in all effects, a different person with their memories.
Answer
The Dark Side does affect you both mentally and physically, in many ways it is like an addictive drug in that the more you use it, the more you change be become dependent on it:
The dark side, much like a strong, addictive narcotic, affected not only the mind of the user but the appearance as well. As one immersed oneself deeper within the dark side of the Force, its malevolent power took a toll on the body. Darth Bane explained that the reason for this physical degradation was because flesh and bone lacked the endurance to channel the immense power of the dark side indefinitely. Revan also explained that while the light side and Jedi teachings were devoted to preventing physical change through the Force, the dark side changes had to be accepted by the Sith, or they would fail due to their attempts at moderation.
As for completely hollowing you out and replacing you with a demon of some kind, that doesn't happen. Although after enough time had passed and you fall far enough to the Dark Side, it would probably appear as if the old you was indeed dead and replaced by some evil entity.
One interesting case is Darth Nihilus, who was totally consumed by the Dark Side and became some sort of Dark Side poltergeist. Something like this is extremely rare and as far as we know, only ever happened to Nihilus:
In time, the corruption could go beyond mere cosmetic details and directly impair physical abilities. King Ommin of Onderon was a proficient Sith sorcerer for most of his life, and the dark side held him under its decaying influence until he eventually became incapable of movement and needed support from a cyborg exoskeleton in order to survive. Another extreme case of dark side corruption was Darth Zash, whose extensive study of the dark side led to immense physical degradation and eventually a fatal terminal condition. The worst case of this transformation would be Darth Nihilus, who was completely consumed by the dark side both mentally and physically. Eventually, he became an aberration of the dark side that existed only to consume life.
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