3.2 Effects of Dementia

In P.I.E.C.E.S. dementia care education we talk about:

• Instinctual brain: brain stem and cerebellum
• Emotional brain: limbic system
• Thinking brain: cerebrum (2 hemispheres, 4 lobes), frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, temporal lobe
• we experience the world through all 3 levels of the brain
• different dementias tend to affect different parts of the brain
• you may see different behaviours that are very characteristic of a particular dementia, and/or behaviours that are common to the different dementias
• in dementias, as the thinking brain becomes more impaired, behaviour becomes more determined by the instinctual and emotional parts of the brain
  • become more focused on survival
  • territoriality
  • “Fight or Flight”
  • foraging, rummaging, hoarding (Eg. parking lot)