For Patients and Families
With the right care, a patient can slow their progression of dementia and have more life to live.
Take the first step by completing the quiz
WHAT'S YOUR RISK?
Understanding your dementia risk or a loved one’s risk, is a great place to begin when your worried about the disease. Download the pdf, and take the dementia assessment quiz to find out your level of risk.
Understanding common myths
There is a lot of new dementia information that remains unknown to most front-line doctors and other clinicians, even at big centers. Most doctors couldn’t recite more than a handful of dementia risk factors, and may even repeat these common myths. Research has disproven these theories.
Myth vs Truths
Myths you may have heard and facts you should know
Nothing can be done for dementia.
Research proves that other treatments such as diet, exercise, and therapeutics can be effective in slowing progression.
Dementia is not preventable.
Correcting lifestyle and medical dementia risk factors early enough may be able to prevent between 40-60% or more of dementia.
Dementia is just part of aging.
Normal aging does not include dementia. Only 16% of Minnesotans over 65 have it.
We just need to discover the single, silver-bullet drug to cure Alzheimer’s.
No single drug can ever be expected to fix all the many pathways that can lead to dementia. Dementia brain changes start 20-30 years before symptoms start
Diet no longer matters once you get dementia.
Proper nutrition with the right foods on the right schedule can make a big difference in dementia risk and symptoms.
Each patient is unique
There are many metabolic, genetic, infectious, traumatic or toxic roads that can lead to dementia. An average of 10-15 different risks combine to start the dementia chemistry in our brains that 20-30 years later begins to show our first symptoms. No single patient is likely to have all the same risk factors occurring at the same ages as another patient. No two lifestyle histories that contribute to earlier onset of symptoms are exactly the same. Personalities, sleep and exercise patterns, diet and social connectedness very widely, but can strongly affect when and if dementia symptoms will show up.
This is why our evaluations for dementia require a lot of time and effort not just from our team doing the evaluations, but also from our patients, caregivers and families. But, if we take our time, and get enough information, then we can expect more accurate and thorough assessments that lead to uniquely effective, individual dementia care plans that honor each patient’s personal identity. These care plans may be adjusted to pivot when things change over time, but will offer ongoing guidance and goals for patients and their clinicians for many years living with dementia. Regular follow up visits will hold our patients to their commitments in their care plans to do all that they can to repair or re-route their unique roadmap that led to dementia symptoms. We want each person we work with to have more and better life to live that suits them best.
PATIENT STORIES
Read powerful stories from patients and their families.
Benefits of Lifelong Exercise and Friendships
By: Linda Kmitch Linda shares her story about her husband Bob and how his healthy lifestyle and many friends have improved his dementia journey My husband was physically active for most of his life. He had worked in the trades and was constantly climbing ladders and...
A Son Tells His Family Dementia Story
by Eric Linn Looking back to our journey with Alzheimer’s .... Our mother was finally diagnosed with Alzheimer's at the very young of age 58. We struggled, as so many families do, to get her diagnosis and then to accept it. At the time, we were directed to different...
Appointments Required
Dementia Prevention Consultations are available to current and new Dementia Resource Center Clinic patients and their caregivers. Are you concerned about dementia for you or a loved one? Call our Dementia Resource Center Clinic and book an appointment.
Call: (320) 640-6726
Fax: (320) 774-1238
Email: contact@dcan-mn.org
Hours: by appointment only
All content on this website is intended to be informational only and does not create a patient-client relationship and does not intend to constitute medical advice.