Five situations where dementia gets read as something else on a call, and what changes the outcome. Field cards for police and EMS, built on the Steadier Ground Method.
Dementia arrives on calls that were dispatched as something else: a man who won't follow instructions, a woman walking a highway shoulder at dawn, a patient who swung at the medic taking her blood pressure. The signs overlap almost exactly with intoxication, defiance and combativeness, closely enough that the misread is the expected outcome rather than a lapse. These pages are for the officer or the crew standing in that moment.
Each one follows the shape of the family guides on this site: what may be happening, what to say and what not to, what to try next, and where your own protocol takes over. Nothing here directs a decision that belongs to your agency. It is built to change what you carry into it.
Three situations that usually arrive as a call about someone else's problem.
Two situations for the crew that has to touch the patient.
Matt Field has trained hundreds of first responders in the Chicago area since 2012. If you coordinate training for a department or an agency and want this delivered in person, or built into your own instruction, write to info@dementiasteady.com.