Community support for families affected by dementia

Dementia is increasingly encountered in community nursing settings, with an estimated 994000 people living with dementia in the UK at the present time (Wittenberg et al, 2019), being supported by around 700000 family carers. This number is set to rise to 1.7 million by 2050 (Lewis et al, 2014; Carers UK, 2021). Dementia can be defined as a set of symptoms occurring because of brain disease, characterised by a progressive decline in cognitive function including but not limited to memory, reasoning, language and problem-solving skills (Sandiliyan and Dening, 2019). It is also associated with behavioural and psychological symptoms (for example, anxiety or agitation), which affect a person's ability to carry out day-to-day activities and maintain social functioning (Arvanitakis et al, 2019). Dementia is a condition related to age, so is predominantly seen in older adults (defined as aged 65 years or more), but it can also manifest in younger people (under the age of 65 years), which is often referred to as young-onset dementia (Carter et al, 2022). There are many types of dementia, all with their own causes and symptom profiles, but the most common subtypes are Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, mixed dementia, Lewy body dementia and frontotemporal dementia (Cullum and Taye, 2021).