Patients with Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease can live for a long time after the onset of symptoms if the disease is controlled with medical treatment, but medicines can cost thousands of dollars, said Simmons.
Another form of dementia, frontal-temporal dementia (FTD), is associated with behavioral disorders -- the loss of function of the frontal cortex and/or temporal lobes affects the area of the brain responsible for judgment and reason. In a cruel twist, frontal-lobe dementias can strike younger clients in their 50s and 60s. These patients can live for five or 10 years and will likely need specialized long-term care to deal with their behavioral issues.
Patients may also present with mixed dementia, said Simmons.
“Nothing about one dementia protects you from another,” he said.. “If you look at the stats for Lewy body diseases, about 60 or 70 percent of them on autopsy will have Alzheimer’s changes.”
The most simple care option for clients with dementia is home care, where a companion or multiple companions are hired to watch the client and help with daily tasks but not to provide medical care.
Home health care, on the other hand, usually employs a nursing assistant capable of providing some medical care. Such care is best provided via agencies, said Lyons, who can provide back-up caregivers if an aide has to call out sick and provide a nurse on call to help monitor and advise on a patient’s care.
Assisted living is a catch-all term that has lost most of its meaning, said Lyons. What the term usually refers to are memory care and long-term care settings.
In memory care, patients are kept in a secure facility where they cannot wander away. It can refer to large nursing facilities with thousands of residents, or smaller group homes with just seven or eight people -- and prices vary.
“In legal parlance, it is considered a restraint,” said Lyons. “You will need to prove that someone needs their freedom retricted to live in a memory care setting."
Long-term care involves skilled nursing care and rehabilitation or “the proverbial nursing home,” said Lyons. There should be a medical reason for a client to be in a skilled nursing facility, because it means that someone needs around-the-clock care.