Consensus concepts regarding behavioral disturbances of dementia can be useful for screening populations of patients with dementia. However, these concepts may not serve well as guidelines for treatment in clinical practice. The physician or nurse faced with a husband with dementia and his healthy wife must consider seriously all dementia-related behavioral problems, whether or not they fit within consensus concepts. It also is easier to reach a consensus on highly abstract concepts than to achieve agreement on more practical issues. Cultural differences, both between countries and within the same country, also complicate the consensus process.