I’m not saying to completely replace it either, but what are examples of words or phrases you think would be a good “shorthand” for dementia? Anything I can think of is either infantilizing or not actually simpler, just different. And needing to learn a new word might be just as difficult, or might be difficult for other people for different reasons.
I can empathize with patients being embarrassed because they can’t pronounce or remember the name of their own condition, but I feel that the condition itself would pose the same issue with other, substitute words as well. It’s sad and tragic, but I don’t think it can be fixed by a change of language.
over_clox@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The existing terms I tend to hear are ‘brain fog’, CRS (can’t remember shit), and for those with a few more braincells still intact, ‘CRAFT’, or Can’t Remember A Fucking Thing.
Yes, I gather that basically any doctor worth their weight in salt should interpret those sort of terms as the patient has brain/memory issues, but isn’t there some easier and less self-insulting term than CRAFT?
Mesophar@pawb.social 23 hours ago
Those are describing symptoms, though, and could be any number of things. No, there are not other terms currently. That’s why I’m asking you, what do you propose? You are the one that sees there being an issue with this that you want to resolve, what terms do you propose that will describe these conditions, distinguish them from other similar but unrelated conditions (a form of dementia vs stroke vs concussion, etc), isn’t insulting, and is easy to remember?