Basics of numeracy should be an integral part of nurse training.

september 11 :: vol 28 no 2 :: 2013 31 and nurses with patients who have dementia. He says this practice encourages them to live in a false reality. People with dementia are losing their minds and already live in a false reality. At the same time, their emotions are intact – and may be more acute than before onset of the illness. Compassionate care should involve attempting to alleviate their distress of losing their ability to understand what is going on around them. If this means telling ‘white lies’ or using distraction, this has to be kinder than trying to get someone with dementia to understand something they are no longer capable of understanding.