ABSTRACT
Gathering knowledge about and experience with a person with dementia occurs spontaneously, without the simultaneous loss of someone to whom one is attached. At the beginning of a new relationship, carers do not usually become emotionally involved in thinking about dementia and what it must be like to suffer from this illness. Most residents in a residential care facility do not have a dementing illness. For healthy persons, being in the immediate living environment of residents with dementia necessarily causes different types of conflict. Persons with dementia are often shunned, especially during group activities. There are times when complaints about their disruptive behaviour come pouring into the director's office. The range of options for caring long term for persons with dementia outside their family circle will be insufficient in the coming years. Since persons with dementia remain 'fellow residents', even when professional care-givers are off duty, cognitively healthy residents might be especially well served by obtaining information about dementia.
