Researchers concluded recently that advanced dementia is a terminal disease and should be treated likewise.

The final stages of these patients are marked by infections and eating problems which are very common. Sadly, many of patients suffer with advanced dementia suffer an ordeal of medical interventions of questionable benefit as they grow older.

The actual thing that they need is comfort and care according to Dr. Susan L. Mitchell from the Hebrew Senior Life Institute for Aging Research, Boston, and colleagues point out in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Mitchell told the reuters, "Dementia is a leading cause of death in the US affecting over 5 million Americans, with projections to more than triple by 2050. Surprisingly, little is known about how persons with dementia die".

She and her colleagues examined 323 persons in 22 Boston area nursing homes with advanced dementia. She said that these patients had such elaborate memory deficits that they could not even recognize their own family members.

Over a span of 18 months, more than half of them died which was approximately 55 percent.