For over 25 years, the term challenging behaviour (CB) has been used to describe agitation and other “distressed” behaviours associated with dementia (Stokes 2000). But such is the power of language and the importance of getting our terminology right, there has been much debate about whether we should continue to talk of “challenging behaviour”. We will discuss the results of a survey on what should replace the term, but first we will review the background to the debate
