The Importance of Promoting Dementia Awareness

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Around the world, it’s estimated that more than 55 million people live with dementia. As is the case with different causes, the more knowledge people have about dementia, the less harm it can cause.

While dementia is not exactly uncommon in society, there’s still a lot of stigma surrounding it, and people may not be sure how to treat people with the condition. Indeed, many don’t know that dementia exists along a spectrum and that it can affect people in different ways.

Every June, the Alzheimer’s Association promotes dementia awareness, helping people worldwide to take action. Let’s learn a little more about dementia to help increase awareness.

Not Just Memory Loss

To many people, dementia is akin to memory loss, but that isn’t the whole story. That it causes cognitive difficulties in things like logical reasoning is one of the more common surprising facts about dementia.

Dementia can be mild or severe, but it doesn’t have merely one way it affects people. Some older adults with dementia struggle with remembering but also thinking, reasoning, learning, and their mood may abruptly swing.

On the other hand, some amount of forgetfulness is a natural part of aging. How can a person be certain that what they or a loved one are dealing with is dementia and not just getting older?

Early Detection

While there is no cure for it, early dementia detection can significantly raise the well-being and quality of life of the person who has it and the loved ones taking care of them.  Diagnosing it early can help people get more access to information and resources they need while demystifying and destigmatizing the condition.

Appropriate medical care can potentially help slow down the condition and effectively manage the symptoms. It also helps the person with dementia understand and accept the changes they will face, and plan accordingly.

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Sometimes, when a person’s outward behaviour changes, people speculate about the precise cause. It’s important to get an accurate diagnosis to determine whether the altered behaviour is due to natural causes or dementia.

Finally, it’s also worth keeping in mind that while dementia patients tend to be older, young-onset dementia can occur in people diagnosed before they turn 65.

Emotional Support

Dementia can change many aspects of a person’s life, and they need proportional emotional support to counter the condition. Dementia can result in decreased cognitive abilities, memory impairment, alterations in behaviour, and confusion, which can lead to depression, anxiety, and frustration.

A caring, knowledgeable circle can provide meaningful empathy, comfort, and validation to people confronting dementia. When people with dementia have the emotional support of friends, family, and caregivers, it can ease their emotional distress, improve their well-being, and encourage acceptance.

However, caring for people with dementia can be emotionally taxing and challenging. It’s hard to watch friends and loved ones change before your eyes, especially if you can remember them when they were younger and more in charge of themselves.

Having effective dementia care strategies can make meaningful improvements in the lives of patients and their support circles. It’s much easier for people to care for those in their lives with dementia when they understand the condition and how it affects people differently.

Clinical Trials

When people actively seek an early diagnosis of dementia, it helps improve participation in clinical trials and research studies aimed at discovering a cure by advancing novel treatments and enhancing current interventions.

When dementia patients get involved in the research, they may help bring it forward and even benefit from any improvements in new therapies. Everything starts with getting an early diagnosis since you can’t plan your next steps without properly understanding the current condition.

However, it’s important to remember that dementia is a very complex condition with no known cure. Early diagnosis and clinical trials are great things to pursue, but the process of supporting somebody with dementia can still be very overwhelming on different levels.

Professional, 24/7 Care

Moving to a dementia care facility is a major decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly. There are people with dementia who can live independently, but a dementia diagnosis does not necessarily mean that a person can’t live alone.

However, living alone comes with risks, and knowing precisely where that line is can be difficult in practice. Sagecare is devoted to providing the utmost level of physical and emotional care, and we have a few guiding principles that dictate how we conceive of dementia and the people who have it.

Sagecare believes that home is a place to belong where dementia is the rule, not the exception. Dementia is a normalized part of everyday life. This approach allows residents to feel more at ease with their condition, so they don’t have to struggle to keep up the appearance of their “self” that social and intellectual expectations may otherwise demand.

We understand that people’s conditions change, and we know how to comfort and support them accordingly. As dementia advances, they need people who understand and care for them at their side in an environment that plays to their strengths.

Sagecare is there for you and your circle of friends and family if you think it’s time for someone important in your life to become a resident. It’s important to promote dementia awareness for the general public, but once the condition impacts somebody close to you, you may need to move them into an intentional community that can properly support and care for them.

The aging process is something everybody goes through, though we experience it a little differently. Erasing the stigma attached to conditions like dementia can help people seek better treatments sooner, boosting their quality of life, and helping others in their position. Peeling away the myths surrounding dementia will help patients understand their own condition better, and it also makes it easier for their carers to understand what their loved ones are experiencing, so they can address it more effectively.

That’s why Sagecare believes in promoting dementia awareness this June and throughout the year.