ABSTRACT
References 178
Dementia care is not the care of the dying: it is about meaningful life for the living (Wylie, 2003).
Jokes about dementia abound – ‘with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) you get to meet someone new every day’. When it comes to caring for someone with dementia, this is no longer a joke. The patient may not remember you from yesterday and if they do, it may be that all they remember is the emotion that seeing you engenders – happiness or irritability. Every day you need to introduce yourself to the patient and explain the task to be undertaken. He or she is in an unfamiliar environment, surrounded by strangers and may be frightened. A fundamental tenet of nursing is to provide a safe, secure environment, so we need to ameliorate that fear.
