LETTER: Dementia: a better term

It implies that the patient is ‘demented’... a lunatic, in fact. The condition used to be referred to as ‘senile decay’ – an equally repulsive term.

By heavens, if anyone referred to me as having ‘dementia’ simply because of my age, I’d scratch their eyes out... and I’m not a lunatic!

Surely, it is not beyond the wit of the medical profession to come up with something a little more scientific, a little less inflamatory, a little more precise, to define the condition?

We OAPs gracefully going ga-ga look forward to the day when we shall no longer have to endure such vile insults.

I. Fox

Rope Walk

Littlehampton

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