While dementia is a progressive disease, positive aspects often relate to the experience of living with it, including relief from uncertainty after diagnosis, opportunities for future planning, finding new meaning through activities like reminiscing, strengthened bonds with supportive family/community, and personal growth in emotional resilience, allowing for a meaningful life by focusing on present abilities and connections rather than past deficits.
Benefits for people with dementia and their carers
If you have not done so already, it's a good idea to get a needs assessment from social services. This is free and can identify anything you may need help with. It may also show that you qualify for benefits, such as Attendance Allowance.
The 10 warning signs of dementia include memory loss, difficulty with familiar tasks, confusion about time/place, trouble with language, poor judgment, misplacing things, personality changes, loss of initiative, and problems with visual/spatial skills, requiring professional assessment to distinguish from normal aging.
There is currently no cure for dementia. But there are medicines and other treatments that can help with dementia symptoms.
Playing music, having objects to touch and interact with, and hand massage can all help people with dementia in the later stages.
Orange juice, apples, strawberries, blueberries peppers, celery, grapefruits, apples, pears, and many more — a rainbow colored cornucopia of fruits and vegetables — were shown to boost brain health.
Reduce your risk of dementia
Dementia is caused by damage to or loss of nerve cells and their connections in the brain. The symptoms depend on the area of the brain that's affected. Dementia can affect people differently. Dementias are often grouped by what they have in common.
These include problems with memory, thinking, problem-solving or language, and often changes in emotions, perception or behaviour. As dementia progresses, a person will need more help and, at some point, will need a lot of support with daily living.
There's no single "best" treatment, but managing dementia involves a combination of medications (like cholinesterase inhibitors and memantine) to improve symptoms, lifestyle changes (exercise, diet, routine), and supportive care (caregiver training, environmental adjustments) to enhance daily functioning and safety, with newer drugs like lecanemab showing promise in slowing early Alzheimer's progression.
Stage 1: Normal outward behavior. No Dementia.
You won't notice any changes with your loved one.
The "2-finger test" for dementia involves an examiner showing a hand gesture (like interlocking index and middle fingers) and asking the patient to copy it, testing motor skills, visual memory, and coordination, as difficulties can signal early cognitive decline, but it's a screening tool, not a definitive diagnosis, prompting further medical evaluation. Other related tests include finger-tapping and finger-to-nose, looking for hesitation or misjudgment in movement.
There is currently no cure for dementia, but recognising the early signs and symptoms is still very important. We explore why spotting the early signs matters for everyone affected by dementia and why we support research to improve diagnosis.
When someone gets the diagnosis of dementia, a cure is only very rarely possible (see p2 About Reversible Dementias). In the current issue of Neurology, Sacks and Shulman1 report one of these rare cases of a reversal of dementia involving a patient on steroid medication.
You may get a discount or exemption if you or someone you live with is severely mentally impaired. This means a person has "a severe impairment of intelligence and social functioning (however caused), which appears to be permanent". A severe mental impairment could be because of a condition like: dementia.
Most forms of dementia progress over the course of several years, and some people may even live for more than a decade after their diagnosis. On average, people with Alzheimer's disease will live eight years after the initial diagnosis. Frontotemporal dementia typically progresses faster than Alzheimer's disease.
There is currently no cure for dementia. In fact, because dementia is caused by different diseases it is unlikely that there will be a single cure for dementia. Research is aimed at finding cures for dementia-causing diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal dementia and dementia with Lewy bodies.
You can live with dementia for an average of 4 to 10 years after diagnosis, but this varies significantly, with some people living 20 years or more, depending on age, overall health, and dementia type, with Alzheimer's averaging 8-10 years and vascular dementia closer to 5 years. Factors like diagnosis stage, age, gender, other health conditions (e.g., heart disease, frailty), and dementia subtype greatly influence life expectancy, with people often succumbing to infections or complications rather than the disease itself.
Although Alzheimer's disease is still the most common type of dementia in people under 65, a higher percentage of people in this age group may develop frontotemporal dementia than older people. Most cases are diagnosed in people aged 45-65.
The cause of roughly 70% of all dementia cases is Alzheimer's disease, a progressive brain disorder characterized by the buildup of amyloid plaques and tau tangles, leading to memory loss and impaired thinking that interferes with daily life, making it the most common form of dementia.
What can you do now to lower your dementia risk?
While cutting out sugar entirely won't reverse dementia, reducing intake may help manage symptoms. A significant portion of the Connections memory care program relies on socialization and exercise, as physical activity can help slow memory loss in people with Alzheimer's and dementia.
Include wholegrain starchy foods in most meals – for example, wholemeal bread, rice and pasta. Eat more fruits, vegetables, pulses (for example, beans, peas and lentils) and nuts and seeds. Eat less red meat – for example beef and lamb, and especially processed meats such as sausages and bacon.
Try these brain health tips:
The following procedures also may be used to diagnose dementia: Cognitive and neurological tests. Used to evaluate thinking and physical functioning, these tests include assessments of memory, problem solving, language skills, and math skills, as well as balance, sensory response, and reflexes. Brain scans.