Glossary
Dementia care, defined plainly
The words a family meets in the first year, each in about a hundred words, with the pages that answer the question where you live. No jargon and no medical advice.
- Activities of daily living (ADLs)
- Activities of daily living are the basic self-care tasks: bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, continence and moving from bed to chair.
- Adult day program
- An adult day program is a supervised daytime setting, usually weekdays, offering activities, meals and care for older adults, including many with dementia.
- Aid and Attendance (VA)
- Aid and Attendance is an extra monthly payment from the Department of Veterans Affairs for eligible veterans or surviving spouses who need help with daily activities, which can be spent on in-home care.
- Caregiver burnout
- Caregiver burnout is physical and emotional exhaustion from sustained caregiving, often with resentment, withdrawal and declining health of the caregiver themselves.
- Companion care
- Companion care is non-medical in-home help focused on supervision, company and daily tasks rather than hands-on personal care.
- Early-onset dementia
- Early-onset, or younger-onset, dementia is dementia diagnosed before the age of 65.
- Elder law attorney
- An elder law attorney is a lawyer who specialises in the legal needs of older adults: powers of attorney, guardianship, Medicaid planning, and estate matters.
- Frontotemporal dementia
- Frontotemporal dementia is a group of dementias affecting the front and sides of the brain, showing first as changes in personality, behaviour or language rather than memory.
- Geriatric care manager
- A geriatric care manager, also called an aging life care professional, is a paid professional, usually a nurse or social worker, who assesses an older person's needs and coordinates their care.
- Home health aide
- A home health aide is a trained, usually certified, worker who provides personal care at home, often under a nurse's supervision as part of a home health agency's service.
- Home safety assessment
- A home safety assessment is a room-by-room check of a house for the hazards dementia makes dangerous: stairs, stove, medications, water temperature, exits, lighting and trip hazards.
- Hospital discharge planning
- Discharge planning is the process of arranging where a patient goes and what care they get when they leave hospital, done by a hospital discharge planner or social worker.
- Lewy body dementia
- Lewy body dementia is a dementia marked by fluctuating alertness, visual hallucinations, movement problems like those of Parkinson's disease, and acting out dreams during sleep.
- Live-in care
- Live-in care is an arrangement where a caregiver lives in the person's home, typically working a long day with a sleep period, so someone is always present.
- Long-term care ombudsman
- A long-term care ombudsman is a free, government-backed advocate who investigates complaints about nursing homes, assisted living and similar facilities on behalf of residents.
- Look-back period
- The look-back period is the window, five years in most states, during which Medicaid reviews any assets a person gave away or sold below value before applying.
- Medicaid waiver
- A Medicaid waiver is a state programme that pays for care at home or in the community for people who would otherwise qualify for a nursing home.
- Memory care
- Memory care is care designed specifically for people with dementia, whether delivered in a dedicated facility unit or at home by caregivers trained in dementia.
- Memory clinic
- A memory clinic is a specialist service, usually at a hospital or university, that assesses people with memory or thinking problems and diagnoses the cause.
- Mild cognitive impairment (MCI)
- Mild cognitive impairment is a decline in memory or thinking that is noticeable and measurable but not severe enough to interfere with daily life.
- Neuropsychological testing
- Neuropsychological testing is a structured set of tasks, given by a psychologist, that measures memory, attention, language, reasoning and other thinking skills in detail.
- Overnight care
- Overnight care is a caregiver present through the night, either awake or on call, so a family member can sleep.
- Personal care
- Personal care is hands-on help with the physical activities of daily living: bathing, dressing, toileting, moving and eating.
- Power of attorney
- A power of attorney is a legal document in which a person appoints someone else to make decisions on their behalf; for dementia, the important kinds are durable financial and healthcare powers of attorney.
- Private pay
- Private pay means paying for care from the family's own money, rather than through Medicare, Medicaid, insurance or the VA.
- Redirection
- Redirection is a caregiving technique for dementia in which, instead of arguing with a distressing belief or request, the caregiver acknowledges the feeling and gently shifts attention to something else.
- Respite care
- Respite care is short-term care for a person with dementia so their usual caregiver can take a break.
- Stages of dementia
- The stages of dementia are a way of describing progression, most often as early, middle and late, or on a seven-point scale from no impairment to very severe decline.
- Sundowning
- Sundowning is a pattern where confusion, agitation or anxiety in a person with dementia gets worse in the late afternoon and evening.
- Support group
- A dementia support group is a regular meeting, in person or online, where family caregivers talk with others in the same situation, usually led by a trained facilitator.
- Vascular dementia
- Vascular dementia is dementia caused by reduced blood flow to the brain, most often after strokes or from damage to small blood vessels.
- Wandering
- Wandering is when a person with dementia walks away from a safe place, often without being able to find the way back.