Disclosed are an apparatus and method for detecting dementia and providing a dementia patient management service. A dementia symptom recognition apparatus includes a reception unit for receiving physiological signals of a dementia patient collected by sensors corresponding to a dementia detection device, an ambient environmental information signal, a location signal, a motion signal, an audio signal, and a video signal for the dementia patient, a determination unit for analyzing the signals, and determining features of the dementia patient, wherein the features include information about whether the dementia patient is in an unconscious state during generation of the physiological signals and whether the patient speaks words appropriate for a situation, and a symptom recognition unit for comparing features corresponding to respective dementia symptoms with features of the dementia patient, determining variations in cognitive ability, memory, and expressiveness based on a result of the comparison, and recognizing each dementia symptom.