What are we going to do now?” “Can I go with you?” “You’re not going to leave me, are you?”

Bill Cadotte answers his wife’s repetitive questions dozens, if not hundreds, of times every day. He knows it’s her dementia speaking, not the charming woman he met more than 50 years ago. The outgoing woman who helped him raise their three children on the Lac Courtes Oreilles reservation near Hayward, where the couple continues to live today.

Having dementia or caring for someone with it is a challenge anywhere. But it can be more of a struggle in rural areas, where services such as adult day care, home care, nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and state-supported dementia care specialists can be hard to come by.