More aware of dementia?

Sunday sees the start of Dementia Awareness Week, which is run every year by the Alzheimer’s Society.

It’s an opportunity for all of us to get people talking about dementia, but what is to be gained by making people more aware of dementia? Surely we all know that it exists and that it is a terrible condition?

Perhaps what really counts now is the quality of the awareness rather than just being aware that dementia is a problem. Just as we have moved on from thinking that dementia is part of being old to understanding that it’s a condition caused by a range of diseases of the brain, we need to get beyond the stigma and stereotype that still dog people living with dementia.

If your image of someone with dementia is that of an isolated, bewildered person utterly dependent on others at all times, think again. Most people with dementia can enjoy a reasonable quality of life if they are given appropriate care. Realising that makes it more likely that they will be given that care rather than shut away and neglected.

If you think that medical science can do nothing, you might be surprised to discover the advances that have been made and those which might well lie just ahead of us. Conversely, if you saw a newspaper headline claiming that coffee or Sudoku could prevent dementia, it was hype. The progress of scientific research is slow and painstaking and cannot currently justify the dramatic breakthroughs beloved of headline writers. However, research is slowly changing the way we see dementia and offers real hope of a very different outlook for people who develop the condition in years to come.

So let’s use Dementia Awareness Week to be better informed, not more scared simply because the reality of dementia has seeped into our consciousness. Awareness as the opposite of denial is a gloomy prospect, but awareness as deeper understanding is a different matter altogether.