This question comes from watching the TV right now, and they’re talking about Bruce Willis. I feel bad for him, I really do…
Bruce Willis apparently has what they call Frontotemporal Dementia. That’s a tounge twister mouthful for most average people, I can only assume Mr. Willis probably can’t even remember the name of his own condition…
Why isn’t there a ‘patient-friendly’ easy to remember name for disorders that literally affect a person’s brain and memory?
Like shit, I bet most people wouldn’t know what polytetrafluoroethylene is, but they gave everyone a simple name to know it by, teflon.
So, why don’t they have simpler terms for brain disorders so the suffering patient might be able to talk to their own doctor privately…?
Also, the fewer syllables for people suffering brain/memory issues, the easier it is for them to communicate.
Nobody expects a person with brain problems to remember the entire medical encyclopedia, but it would make it quite a bit easier to shorten the most common brain disorders, where the suffering person might be able to remember and say it on their own.
He has dementia which is an easy enough word for most people to be able to say. If you want to know the location of the dementia it’s in the frontotemporal area of the brain. But why that complex word well the front of the brain is called the frontal lobes which is a fairly logical name then the temporal lobe is the part that’s near your temples which is also kind of logical.
Historically medicine has been bad about being less specific with names and instead just naming things after people which while they are easier to say don’t actually describe what’s happening
Yes, it’s easy for most people to say and spell dementia. Except for some of the people actually suffering from brain/memory disorders…
How is “dementia” harder than any other word? If they are suffering from brain/memory disorders, wouldn’t any new or novel word have the same issue? I think the opposite would be better, and normalizing simplified forms of the medical terminology (dementia instead of frontotemporal dementia) in every day language allows those words to have deeper roots in someone’s memory, making it less novel and more resilient to certain memory issues.
How is “dementia” more difficult than other words?
Dementia is never even pronounced
rightthe way it’s spelled.It’s spelled that way, but it’s pronounced “dihmenshuh”
I’ve never heard it pronounced any other way?
And my point is that being exposed to the word dementia, and taught what it means and how to say it, is no different than being taught how to say Teflon. When you first learn it, it will be a bit awkward. The more you and people around you use it, the more familiar it will become. That just how language works.
What do you propose we use instead of dementia? How would that be a better solution? I’m not against helping people with better accessibility, I just don’t see where this is a problem that can be solved by changing the words used. Especially since to me it seems like we already do what is being suggested in the title post. We already usually have a general term in common conversation in place of the full medical term used by medical professionals.
I never said to change the existing words, I’m just suggesting to do like almost every other word or phrase and have a shorthand, easier to remember/communicate acronym or something.
Imagine actually being a person suffering with brain/memory issues. You know you have a condition, but you can’t remember what the hell the doctor called it to save your life.
That’s fucking embarrassing to them, I’ve seen that firsthand more than once. ☹️
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.
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 CRS or CRAFT?
I’ve literally never heard anyone say dementia incorrectly.
Thanks AI!
Pronunciation of Dementia
The word “dementia” is pronounced as follows: Phonetic Spelling
So where the hell did the T in dementia come from in the first place, when in place of the T it’s pronounced with the SH sound? Yet another unnecessarily confusing word. Sigh, English is fun like that huh?
I think what this is telling us is that OP hangs out in circles where no one knows what dementia is, so it seems like a complicated word for them.
Must be terrible for the french dementia patients then, those fuckers don’t even pronounce half of their words.