Agitation is a common feature in people with dementia. Agitation can be the clinical expression of a medical condition comorbid with dementia or a behavioural and psychological symptom of dementia. In both cases, it is a clinical manifestation and not a disease in itself. This polysemy of agitation invites us to think of a global care of the demented subject taking into account the subject in his environment and their history. Reducing the treatment of agitation to sedating it amounts to a reification of the demented subject.