A Loved One Was Diagnosed With Dementia. Now What?

older man grips forehead at doctor's office

by Mohana Ravindranath for the New York Times

Families and experts share their best advice for navigating and coping.

“It’s the mental equivalent of death by a thousand paper cuts,” said Don Siegel, of Silver Spring, Md., whose wife, Bette, died in 2024 after several years with Lewy body dementia. Families are “left with someone you can’t recognize, except in very brief moments.”

The New York Times asked dementia specialists and seven families who have faced the disease to share advice for moving forward after a diagnosis.

Adapt to your loved one’s new reality. Families often try to reason or argue with loved ones because it’s hard to go along with untrue facts and outlandish assertions, or they may be clinging to a false hope that correcting the person will help them recover their cognitive abilities, said Dr. James Noble, a dementia specialist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the author of “Navigating Life with Dementia.”

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