They should really find another name

A stupid 'specialist' to whom S was referred when we were applying for ill-health retirement stated in an illiterate report that she appeared 'not so much demented as depressed' - this when she had already been attending the memory clinic for several years and when regular tests and several scans had shown that there was a real problem. No-one else felt that, at that time, she was depressed in a clinical sense though naturally she wasn't over the moon about what was happening to her.

Dementia has very unfortunate connotations, 'demented' is even more suspect. Like 'mental' and 'deranged' - no-one would want these words applied to them. The common usage of these words also seems to suggest a permanent state when, even at an advanced stage, there can be periods of 'normality'.

This is not some PC thing. The words just aren't helpful - to anyone.

Connected to this is the whole concept of diagnosis, of which more later.