Dementia

Dementia is not a specific disease, it describes a wide range of symptoms, personality changes, memory loss, or unusual behavior severe enough to reduce a person’s ability to perform everyday activities. Saying that someone has dementia recognizes these changes in the person, but it says nothing about why they have these symptoms. It doesn’t explain the cause.

This section contains a variety of topics; understanding dementia, dealing with difficult behavior changes caused by dementia, assisting a person with dementia with daily activities such as bathing, dental care, incontinence, and nutrition; what to do about driving, working with caregiver frustration, and much more!

Good resources for getting started:

• Dementia: Is This Dementia and What Does It Mean?
• Caregiver’s Guide to Understanding Dementia Behaviors
• A Caregiver’s Guide to Managing Challenging Dementia Behavior: An Online Learning Series