Quotes About Dementia

worse than amnesia, the loss of all memory. It is the chaotic falsification of memory. Dementia.

Use a sauna a few times a week. Studies demonstrate reduced dementia in more than 15 percent of those who used one four times a week for 20 minutes or more; whether this benefit is the result of stress reduction or some other property is still unknown. We believe the benefit is due to the high temperature, which releases heat shock proteins, produced by cells in response to stressful conditions. This means a hot bath or an infrared sauna may have the same benefit.

As the dementia progresses and the person develops trouble with coordination and language, it is easy to forget his need to experience pleasant things and to enjoy himself. Never overlook the importance of hand holding, touching, hugging, and loving.

Hospitals are often at the centre of things ('choirs and MPs visit them'), but 'homes are on the margins', so there is often a sense of being 'shut away out of sight; of loneliness'. Old age can push people to the edge of society; dementia often pushes them right out of sight, and then out of mind. They are the missing persons.

But for people who are at the end stages of dementia, death should not be fought against. It's a kindness. Let them go.

Dementia is a particularly long farewell to the self. With most illnesses, death comes quite swiftly. With dementia, the flicker with which life ends is excruciatingly slowed.

There's an anticipated, ambiguous grief; a premature mourning of the self, or of the beloved other. During dementia's last stages, a beloved person may be there and yet absent, a powerful reminder of the self's loss.

During dementia's end-game, a person goes to a place where we cannot follow them and can barely guess at. The bursts of lucidity that those with catastrophic memory loss can sometimes have are like bright, sharp flashes of lightning over a blasted landscape.

One of the symptoms of senile dementia is suspicion and the other is paranoia.

Not all activities are equal in this regard. Those that involve genuine concentration—studying a musical instrument, playing board games, reading, and dancing—are associated with a lower risk for dementia. Dancing, which requires learning new moves, is both physically and mentally challenging and requires much concentration. Less intense activities, such as bowling, babysitting, and golfing, are not associated with a reduced incidence of Alzheimer's. (254)

The more education we have, the more socially and physically active we are, and the more we participate in mentally stimulating activities, the less likely we are to get Alzheimer's disease or dementia.

NICE (2003) has recommended the Mini Mental State Examination,

We must be very careful that we do not label persons with dementia by their Behaviours. Labels can often reflect attitudes and can shape how we respond to people. It is not unusual to hear a resident labeled as a "wanderer" or a "hitter". Labels can make people assume the Behaviour reflects the person and fail to recognise that the person is experiencing pain, fear or some other emotional or physical problem that needs to be addressed. Labeling