As you get older, you're more likely to develop vision problems. This may add to your dementia symptoms, causing confusion and communication difficulties.
Dementia can cause poor vision where the issue is in the person's brain and their eyes are still healthy. So, they may have difficulty with recognising what they see, rather than with how clearly they perceive it.
This website provides helpful information about coping with dementia and sight loss.
A search tool to help you find optometrists. Type your suburb in the search box to find optometrists near you.
This program provides eligible Queensland residents with a pair of basic prescription spectacles, once every 2 years.
Eligible Queenslanders can apply for the Vision Impairment Travel Pass, allowing free travel on all TransLink services (excluding Airtrain) and regional connect bus services.
As you get older, you're more likely to develop hearing problems. This may add to your dementia symptoms, causing confusion and communication difficulties.
An information sheet explaining the relationship between hearing loss, dementia and ageing, with advice on getting support.
A search tool to help you find audiologists by suburb or area of practice.
An organisation that visits eligible clients in the community and at residential aged care facilities to provide hearing assessments and entry-level hearing aids.
Information on the scheme that provides specialised smoke alarms to people with hearing impairments. The smoke alarm alerts the resident to a fire hazard through sight (flashing light) and feel (vibrating pad) so they can evacuate safely.
Losing the ability to communicate how you used to can be one of the most frustrating and upsetting challenges of dementia. A good speech pathologist can help by creating a therapeutic plan to assist people with dementia, their family and their carers with communicating. Speech pathologists diagnose and treat communication impairments. They provide a wide range of services to help clients their manage their speech skills and swallowing capacity safely.
A search tool to help you find speech pathologists. Type your suburb in the search box to find speech pathologists near you.
You may experience hallucinations, or develop them in future.
A hallucination is the perception of something that is not actually present. Any or all of the senses may be involved. These misleading impressions are created by changes in the brain caused by dementia, which generally occurs in the latter stages of the disease.
The most prevalent sort of hallucination reported by people living with dementia is visual hallucinations (seeing things that are not actually there).
People with dementia sometimes experience a range of conditions in which they don't experience things as they really are. Although hallucinations and delusions are imaginary, they seem very real to the person experiencing them and can cause extreme anxiety, and even panic.
It is important to discuss any concerns with your doctor.
A website with information about delusions and hallucinations caused by dementia.
Senses
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia, their diversity, histories and knowledge and their continuing connections to land, waterways and culture. We pay our respect to all Australian Indigenous Peoples and their cultures, and to Elders of past, present and future generations.
We would like to express our gratitude to all the healthy ageing advocates, including people living with dementia, older people, families, carers and health professionals, who contributed to the development of this portal. Thank you for sharing your stories and transferring your knowledge to make this portal purposeful and meaningful to support people in the North Brisbane and Moreton Bay region.