Rehabilitation and dementia in the era of elderly workers.

In recent years the worldwide scenario of health care has been progressively changing in the light of the ageing of the population and the increase in disability related to neurodegenerative disorders in older people. Disorders considered predominantly "geriatric", such as dementia, are now becoming more frequent among the still actively working population because of economic and assistential politics intervention. So the work of the occupational physician, the neurologist, the geriatrician and the rehabilitation specialist must overlap and combine in a unified diagnostic-therapeutic-rehabilitative process in the management of cognitive impairment in order to develop a global medical approach able to maintain physical functions at the higher possible level in this group of "working elders". The effect of physical activity on the functional ability of subjects with dementia showed some evidence of the efficacy of motor interventions in this group of subjects. General and specific rehabilitation strategies designed for the individual patient must be planned for the long-term.