Dementia Symptoms are Disabilities |

Dementia is not in itself a disability, but reframing the symptoms of dementia as disabilities aligns directly with a rights-based approach under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), rather than just treating them as biomedical “deficits”.

This graphic provides a visual example of some of the disabilities people acquire as a result of a dementia diagnosis.

With proactive disability support, including access to rehabilitation, many people with dementia will have a much higher quality of life, and maintain their independence, mobility and autonomy for longer.

Below is a list of common functional disabilities associated with different types of dementia:

🔹 Language and Communication Disabilities

Aphasia – difficulty with speaking, understanding, reading, or writing.
Anomia – inability to recall words or names.
Semantic loss (common in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia) – impaired understanding of meanings of words, objects, or concepts.

🔹 Motor and Praxis Disabilities

Apraxia – difficulty planning and executing voluntary movements (e.g., dressing, using utensils, buttoning clothes).
Dyspraxia – reduced coordination of fine or gross motor movements.
Gait disturbances – mobility limitations, increasing risk of falls.

🔹 Cognitive and Executive Function Disabilities

Memory loss (amnesia) – difficulty recalling recent events or learning new information.
Executive dysfunction – problems with planning, problem-solving, judgment, or multi-tasking.
Attention deficits – difficulty sustaining focus or switching between tasks.

🔹 Visuospatial and Perceptual Disabilities

Agnosia – inability to recognise objects, faces, sounds, or smells, despite intact sensory function.
Visuospatial impairment – difficulty judging distances, navigating environments, or recognising spatial relationships (common in Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia).
Visual hallucinations – particularly common in Lewy body dementia.

🔹 Behavioural and Psychosocial Disabilities

Emotional regulation difficulties – apathy, depression, anxiety, irritability.
Disinhibition – loss of social appropriateness, impulsive behaviour (often in frontotemporal dementia).
Agitation or aggression – behavioural responses often linked to unmet needs or environmental stressors.

🔹 Other Functional Disabilities

Swallowing difficulties (dysphagia) – impairment of safe eating/drinking.
Communication fatigue – loss of stamina in engaging socially.
Reduced independence in activities of daily living (ADLs) – dressing, eating, toileting, managing finances.

Dementia-related “symptoms” should be reframed as acquired disabilities — such as aphasia (language disability), apraxia (motor planning disability), amnesia (memory disability), or agnosia (perceptual disability). This shift has the potential to reduce, or even remove stigma and discrimination, and recognises the right of people living with dementia to reasonable accommodations, accessibility, and equitable inclusion including employment under disability rights frameworks.