What is true: dementia is…?
From the book – Chapter 31: Later-Life and Dementia-Related Care
The right answer
Progressive decline in memory and thinking severe enough to affect daily life
Dementia
Dementia is a syndrome of progressive decline in memory, thinking, orientation, comprehension, calculation, learning, language, and judgement, severe enough to affect daily life.
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Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause.
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Other causes: vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, frontotemporal dementia, mixed types.
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Depression can mimic dementia (“pseudo-dementia”); proper assessment matters.
Many dementias are not fully reversible. Early diagnosis, medical management, cognitive stimulation, caregiver support, and safety planning can still improve quality of life.
Read the full chapter – Chapter 31: Later-Life and Dementia-Related Care
Stories from real life
- Just Getting Old, Said the Family – Mr Hargreaves, seventy-two, had been a head teacher in Manchester. Since retiring two years ago and losing his wife last winter, he had stopped going to…
- Where Did I Put the Keys, Again? – Mrs Lakshmi, seventy-eight, lived with her son Arvind and his wife in Chennai. For the last year she had been repeating questions, leaving the gas on…
- The Carer Who Forgot Herself – Grace, fifty-eight, had cared for her husband Tom in Cork since his dementia diagnosis three years earlier. He no longer knew the day, woke at night,…
- The Empty Flat on Raja Street – Mr Fernandes, seventy, lived alone in Mumbai since his wife died and his children moved abroad. He ate lunch at a different tiffin place each day…
More on this topic: Ageing well, memory loss and dementia – caring for elders
More questions
- What is true: depression can…?
- What is true: ramesh’s family learned…?
- What is true: caregivers need…?
- Just Getting Old, Said the Family – what this story teaches, the signs and what to do
- Where Did I Put the Keys, Again? – what this story teaches, the signs and what to do
- The Carer Who Forgot Herself – what this story teaches, the signs and what to do
- The Empty Flat on Raja Street – what this story teaches, the signs and what to do
- When Dad Became Another Person – what this story teaches, the signs and what to do
- What can we learn from the story “Ramesh”?
- Understanding the load of later life