Remembering is an activity that we all recognize within ourselves. Memory, on the other hand, is an artificial construct meant to represent the act of remembering or how well someone remembers. In psychological terms, memory is divided with respect to time (immediate, recent, and remote) or modality (visual, verbal). By use of these parsing arrangements, we can quantify aspects of memory; define what is normal, superior or flawed; and apply technologies, such as neuroimaging techniques, to the study of remembering. By all definitions, dementia involves “loss of memory,” as if memory is a thing that can be misplaced. This tendency to think of your memory or of individual memories as objects with identity and constancy is part of Western philosophical tradition and the physicality of our theories about memory lead some to the conclusion that the theories must be wrong. Curiously, although all dementia patients have problems remembering, our current therapies do not often improve the measurable features ascribed to memory. Whether this observation represents a problem with the medications or with the concept of memory itself is an unresolved issue. Remediation of dementia, most especially Alzheimer’s disease, is a pressing, global concern. We are prepared to accept many outcomes, including delaying the onset of AD or slowing the cognitive losses associated with established disease in the absence of complete prevention or cure. We will accept these outcomes whether or not they are associated with improved remembering.