I recall that before dementia entered my family, I had not read much about it. I knew what Alzheimers meant, but not the term dementia or other causes of dementia.
I had a friend who always said that her mother had dementia and when I referred to it as Alzheimers, she would always correct me and say, dementia. I asked her what the difference was, but she could never explain it. Sadly, I learned about it when my cousin was diagnosed and I was her caretaker.
The correct term is that your now ill person has a dementia or maybe as in my mothers case has mixed dementias. Dementia is an umbrella term to cover a variety of mental impairments that present in a particular manner. The most common of these is Alzheimers as glad so rightly said but increasingly we are seeing mixed dementias being apparent particularly Alzheimers and Vascular Dementia, the latter often resulting from strokes and mini strokes (but not I understand always)
So to answer your question dementias don't take a back seat at all, but knowing which dementia your loved one has is important because some treatments are suitable to not cure, but to certainly 'hold off' some of the decline.
In turn these medications are not suitable for everyone, for dementias attack each individual individually and there is no one definition of the progress of the dementia the person has, that is applicable to all.
If I can explain it this way. Imagine you have 100 identical very large old machines in front of you and you have some but not 100% awareness as to which part does what. All you know is that the machine isn't really working like it used to.
Most dementias can only be diagnosed following death to be absolutely accurate all that is known is that there is a difference that is recognisable and usually significant
Now imagine watching as 100 people come along with a spanner and removes 1 part of their choosing from each of those machines. There isn't a hope in hell that each machine will continue to function the way it did before but some machines will still function better than others.
That is what happens in the various types of dementia. As each step reduces the brains ability to function so the decline begins but it won't be the same for everyone some can appear to have quite good motility but no cognitive awareness, some have no mobility but remain somewhat lucid, some even vary day to day, some shake, some become violent, some lose all their inhibitions, some have no bowel or bladder control, some sadly have several or all of these.
So dementias are seen as important really important, the diagnosis of WHICH type of dementia someone has is seen to be more important to ensure the best care package is devised for the individual.
Rambled on a bit there but I hope that clears up the issue
Alzheimer's is just one type of more than seventy types of dementia. People can have more than one type. Dementia is the catch all term for cognitive decline no matter the cause. Some causes are treatable.
I recall that before dementia entered my family, I had not read much about it. I knew what Alzheimers meant, but not the term dementia or other causes of dementia.
I had a friend who always said that her mother had dementia and when I referred to it as Alzheimers, she would always correct me and say, dementia. I asked her what the difference was, but she could never explain it. Sadly, I learned about it when my cousin was diagnosed and I was her caretaker.
So to answer your question dementias don't take a back seat at all, but knowing which dementia your loved one has is important because some treatments are suitable to not cure, but to certainly 'hold off' some of the decline.
In turn these medications are not suitable for everyone, for dementias attack each individual individually and there is no one definition of the progress of the dementia the person has, that is applicable to all.
If I can explain it this way. Imagine you have 100 identical very large old machines in front of you and you have some but not 100% awareness as to which part does what. All you know is that the machine isn't really working like it used to.
Most dementias can only be diagnosed following death to be absolutely accurate all that is known is that there is a difference that is recognisable and usually significant
Now imagine watching as 100 people come along with a spanner and removes 1 part of their choosing from each of those machines. There isn't a hope in hell that each machine will continue to function the way it did before but some machines will still function better than others.
That is what happens in the various types of dementia. As each step reduces the brains ability to function so the decline begins but it won't be the same for everyone some can appear to have quite good motility but no cognitive awareness, some have no mobility but remain somewhat lucid, some even vary day to day, some shake, some become violent, some lose all their inhibitions, some have no bowel or bladder control, some sadly have several or all of these.
So dementias are seen as important really important, the diagnosis of WHICH type of dementia someone has is seen to be more important to ensure the best care package is devised for the individual.
Rambled on a bit there but I hope that clears up the issue