Question 1

What is dementia?

Accepted Answer

Dementia is not a single disease. It's an umbrella term for a group of symptoms — memory loss, confusion, impaired reasoning, and personality or behavioural changes — that are severe enough to interfere with daily life. Many different conditions can cause it.

Question 2

What is Alzheimer's disease?

Accepted Answer

Alzheimer's is a specific, progressive brain disease in which brain cells are gradually damaged, driven in part by abnormal protein deposits (plaques and tangles). It typically begins with difficulty remembering new information and progresses to disorientation, confusion, and eventually loss of the ability to perform basic tasks.

Question 3

What's the difference between dementia and Alzheimer's?

Accepted Answer

Dementia is the clinical syndrome (the pattern of symptoms); Alzheimer's is the most common underlying disease that causes it. A useful way to think of it: dementia is what you see, Alzheimer's is often why it's happening.

Question 4

Does everyone with dementia have Alzheimer's?

Accepted Answer

No. Alzheimer's accounts for roughly 60–80% of dementia cases, but dementia can also be caused by vascular disease (often following stroke), Lewy body disease, frontotemporal degeneration, and other conditions.

Question 5

Is all forgetfulness dementia?

Accepted Answer

No. Cognitive decline or forgetfulness only qualifies as dementia when it significantly impairs everyday functioning. Occasional lapses on their own don't meet that bar.

Question 6

How is a diagnosis made?

Accepted Answer

A clinician may first say someone 'has dementia' based on the symptom pattern — memory loss, confusion, trouble managing daily tasks. After further testing and brain imaging, if the changes match Alzheimer's, the more precise diagnosis becomes 'Alzheimer's disease causing dementia.'

Question 7

What's the core difference between normal ageing and early dementia?

Accepted Answer

Normal ageing brings slower thinking and occasional forgetfulness, but people still manage their usual activities independently. Early dementia means the changes are frequent and significant enough to disrupt daily tasks, relationships, and safety — and they typically worsen over time.

Question 8

What do normal age-related memory changes look like?

Accepted Answer

Forgetting a name or appointment but remembering it later, occasionally misplacing items, or walking into a room and briefly forgetting why. Annoying, but not disabling.

Question 9

What do early dementia memory changes look like?

Accepted Answer

Repeatedly forgetting recent conversations or events, asking the same questions over and over, or having no memory that something was ever planned — with these lapses starting to affect daily life.

Question 10

How does thinking and problem-solving differ?

Accepted Answer

With normal ageing, complex tasks like managing finances or following a recipe may take longer but are still doable. With early dementia, people noticeably struggle to follow a plan, work with numbers, or complete familiar tasks, and may abandon them or get lost partway through.

Question 11

What about language and conversation?

Accepted Answer

Occasional 'tip-of-the-tongue' moments are normal. Early dementia looks more like losing track mid-conversation, repeating the same stories or questions, or using unusual words for common items.

Question 12

What about getting lost or confused about time?

Accepted Answer

Briefly forgetting the day but quickly working it out is normal. Becoming confused about time, dates, or seasons, or getting disoriented and lost in familiar places, is a warning sign of early dementia.

Question 13

Can dementia change someone's personality or judgment?

Accepted Answer

Yes. While normal ageing includes the occasional poor decision or mild mood change, early dementia can bring repeated poor or unsafe decisions, noticeable personality shifts, loss of inhibitions, increased irritability or anxiety, and behaviour that seems very out of character.

Question 14

What's the simplest test to tell them apart?

Accepted Answer

Frequency and impact. Age-related changes are occasional, mild, and don't stop someone functioning. Dementia-related changes are frequent, progressive, and begin to impair independence — managing money, medications, driving, work, or social life becomes clearly harder or unsafe.

Question 15

When should someone see a doctor?

Accepted Answer

When memory or thinking problems start interfering with work, social life, driving, finances, or daily routines — or when other people notice significant changes.

Question 16

Why does early assessment matter?

Accepted Answer

Because it can identify treatable causes of cognitive problems (medication side effects, depression, sleep issues, vitamin deficiencies). And if it is dementia, an early diagnosis allows for planning, support, and risk reduction much sooner.

Dementia care in New Zealand: a family FAQ.

Understanding the basics

Normal ageing vs early dementia

When to act

Have questions we haven't answered?