Doctors and Families Are Handling Dementia All Wrong, Says This Expert

Clinical neuropsychologist John DenBoer believes doctors and relatives of people with dementia need to rethink their strategy to cope with the disease and its effect on their loved ones, according to MarketWatch . DenBoer criticizes the assumption that dementia is just a part of aging, calling it "a deep-seated philosophical myth because people tend to base a lot of their actions around that. They don't take action, they don't treat dementia like they would treat heart disease or diabetes, they don't do a lot of the prevention or intervention because they don't believe anything can be done," he asserts. DenBoer says this mindset reinforces the myth that nothing can be done to stop the disease, as well as the falsehood that simple brain activities will encourage prevention and intervention. He stresses the need to reengineer the conversation about dementia that doctors, caregivers, and recipients should have. "We should really be having the conversation of what we can do to help people when they get into their 60s and 70s," DenBoer argues. "What can we do to promote optimal brain health so they don't develop the disease at all." This should start with a neuropsychological evaluation and magnetic resonance imaging study of the brain, to be repeated every two years after age 65. Compassion and emphasis on brain health, rather than deterioration, should then be the focus of the caregiver-recipient conversation.