Rethinking Communication guide to advanced dementia

As our life expectancy increases, more of us will experience the consequences of old age. These are both physical and mental. One of the best known and most feared is dementia. It is not a disease in itself, rather an umbrella term that describes a collection of symptoms caused by a number of diseases. These diseases slowly kill off brain cells, to the extent that dementia is eventually terminal. Alzheimer’s disease is the biggest cause of dementia and is thought to account for up to 80% of cases. So what does dementia look like? Its symptoms include problems like these: • Difficulty performing the activities of daily living, like washing, cooking and shopping. In technical language, these are classified as ‘functional abilities’. • Difficulty recalling recent life events, such as what you had for breakfast. This is called ‘episodic memory’. The emphasis is on recent events.