Dementia is best described as a loss of intellectual or cognitive (thinking) functions within the brain. Those who suffer dementia are, quite often, confused and easily irritated. They may not be able to recognize their family members of friends, they become lost, even in surroundings that should be familiar to them, and they gradually lose the skills, which they need, in order to live independently.

The earliest signs of dementia tend to be very subtle and are hard to differentiate from normal signs of aging. The most common of these is the characteristic loss of memory, which so many equate with Alzheimer‘s disease and dementia. In the first stages of this disease, it may be barely recognizable; the occasional slip of a name, getting directions twisted around, forgetting how to spell something – just little inconveniences that didn’t harm anyone. As the disease progresses, however, the signs become far more pronounced.

During the secondary stages of dementia, the forgetfulness that the patient suffered previously has become something intense enough that it interferes with day-to-day life. The patient may very well forget familiar faces of family and loved ones. Surroundings may, at times, seem strange and unsettling, and people who attempting to help are regarded with fear, anger and paranoia. Step by step, their life becomes a prison and those that love them become strange, unwilling jailers.

Along with the obvious forgetting of faces, it suddenly becomes increasingly difficult for the one suffering from dementia to perform easy tasks. Simple steps are suddenly forgotten or items misplaced, like car keys being stored in a bag of flour or the patient forgetting to put lunchmeat on their sandwich and just eating two pieces of bread with mustard in between them. Surroundings frequently warp, with the victim easily able to lose themselves even with home just around the corner, regardless of how many times they’ve taken the exact same route.

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