Dementia provides a functional and behavioral approach to assessing and treating persons with dementia. It describes behavioral interventions and environmental strategies to improve quality of life from a proactive communication and memory basis.
Person-centered care for persons with dementia has been developed and expanded over the last few decades. Speech-language pathologists are uniquely positioned to understand the striking impact that communication challenges have on persons with dementia and their caregivers, and can lead the charge to improve access to communication and participation. This volume serves as a starting point and reference manual for those who want to provide person-centered and life-enhancing services to persons with dementia, and to inspire the continued generation of quality research to demonstrate the value of cognitive-communication, behavioral, and caregiver interventions. It serves as a call to action for an interprofessional team of healthcare providers across healthcare settings to promote meaningful life engagement in persons with dementia using evidence-based assessment and intervention approaches.
This volume provides background on the evolution of caring for persons with dementia, as well as a description of the diagnostic process for dementia syndromes and the cognitive and communication characteristics of dementias with an emphasis on Alzheimer's dementia. Its chapters cover the person-centered assessment process for persons with cognitive and communicative disorders of dementias; intervention approaches for the wide variety of cognitive, communicative, eating/swallowing, and behavioral symptoms and consequences of dementia syndromes; reimbursement and documentation issues for various settings in which persons with dementia are seen; and issues and challenges of quality of life and end-of-life care.
"This volume should be on the shelf of every clinician who works in a medical setting, and will be a must-have textbook for graduate courses. It is unique in its combination of powerful and practical clinical examples with evidence-based assertions, all with a very clear focus on person-centered care. If you've ever had a question about the best communication interventions in dementia, you'll find it in this book." - Jacqueline Hinckley, Voices of Hope for Aphasia, St. Petersburgh, Florida, USA
"Understanding, assessing, and managing the problems of individuals with dementia and their caregivers is possibly the hottest topic in speech-language pathology today. Similarly, person-centered approaches not only to dementia but across the entire spectrum of speech, hearing, and language disorders are an area of rapid growth and change. For practitioners and students who wish to stay current in these areas, this book is simply required reading." Audrey L. Holland, University of Arizona, USA
"This information-packed edition provides a rich array of assessment and intervention approaches to address cognition, communication, eating, and swallowing challenges in people with dementia. The authors highlight principles of quality of life, independence, and relevance. Speech-language pathologists in the US will find content on reimbursement strategies to be particularly helpful." - Brooke Hallowell, Springfield College, USA
"This book is masterfully written, covering critical topics ranging from definitions and diagnostics to interventions, with a focus on abolishing nihilistic attitudes and moving towards a multi-disciplinary, humanistic, and holistic approach to dementia care.? Person-centred, evidence-based therapeutic interventions are critically researched and clearly described, with a focus on strategies aimed at improving function and enhancing quality of life. This book is an essential resource for all professionals working in dementia care." - Gail Elliot, DementiAbility Enterprises Inc., Burlington, Ontario, Canada
