ABSTRACT
The World Health Organisation Global Dementia Action Plan 2017 is for people with dementia and their carers to live well and receive the care and support they need to fulfil their potential to live with dignity, respect, autonomy and equality. This improvement imperative is particularly welcomed by individuals, family and practitioners, many of whom have direct experience of what might be described as the inverse care law, that is to say, that those who need most care seem to receive least. The commonest form is Alzheimer’s disease; other common forms are vascular dementia, Lewy Body dementia and frontotemporal dementia. Dementia is a syndrome due to disease of the brain, usually of a chronic or progressive nature, in which there is disturbance of multiple higher cortical functions, including memory, thinking, orientation, comprehension, calculation, learning capacity, language, and judgement. Dementia is a progressive condition that most commonly affects memory, cognition, communication and sensory experiences.
