On dementia, we need to tell it how it is

‘In all the care homes I have been into, people with dementia weren’t “living well with dementia”; they were suffering.’ Photograph: Image Source/Alamy

Sally Byers takes Polly Toynbee to task (Letters, 19 October) for using what she considers to be “deeply troubling language” about people with dementia, in particular the phrases “glazed stares or sleeping mouths agape” and “that terrible human vacancy” in Toynbee’s article (In Liverpool I saw the tough choices Louise Casey faces on social care – starting with who will pay?, 13 October).

I looked at the Dementia Engagement and Empowerment Project language guide for journalists highlighted in the letter. It gives a list of words and descriptions to avoid, including “dementia sufferer”, and lists alternative phrases to be used as “person/people with dementia”, “person/people living with dementia” or “person/people living well with dementia”.