Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to look at concerns about risk/abuse expressed spontaneously by people with dementia (PwD) and their carers in narratives describing their journeys with dementia. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 35 narratives were elicited from PwD, carers of PwD and couples where one partner was living with dementia as part of a study on the impact of producing narratives on PwD and their carers. Participants were found to allude to risk/abuse, or specifically mention thoughts on risk and abuse in their narratives.