The BBC are featuring Dementia all week, to tie in with the G8 meeting in London.
Dementia: Five priorities for research
This one does what most coverage does - it confuses Alzheimers Disease with Dementia. Even the first image, of a shrunken brain, is captioned "Loss of tissue in a demented brain compared with a healthy one", but if you look at the image, it is of a brain with Alzheimer's Disease.
The article talks about one disease. These are many different diseases. The causes and effects are different, and while we don't know how to prevent Alzheimers, we do know that a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of Vascular Dementia. This article is poor quality, and wrong.
And finally, we can see that the word 'Demented' is derived from 'Dementia', but to me it's a judgemental term - an insult. Would you want your loved one's carer to describe them as 'Demented'? I don't think so.
The BBC used to have a way of commenting on their articles, but not now. Perhaps someone at the Alzheimers Society could have put them straight?
Dementia: Five priorities for research
This one does what most coverage does - it confuses Alzheimers Disease with Dementia. Even the first image, of a shrunken brain, is captioned "Loss of tissue in a demented brain compared with a healthy one", but if you look at the image, it is of a brain with Alzheimer's Disease.
The article talks about one disease. These are many different diseases. The causes and effects are different, and while we don't know how to prevent Alzheimers, we do know that a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of Vascular Dementia. This article is poor quality, and wrong.
And finally, we can see that the word 'Demented' is derived from 'Dementia', but to me it's a judgemental term - an insult. Would you want your loved one's carer to describe them as 'Demented'? I don't think so.
The BBC used to have a way of commenting on their articles, but not now. Perhaps someone at the Alzheimers Society could have put them straight?