What 'kind' of community is demanded by a problem like dementia? As aspects of care continue to transition from institutional to community and home settings, this book considers the implications for people living with dementia and their carers. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and case studies from Canada, this book analyses the intersections of formal dementia strategies and the experiences of families and others on the frontlines of care. Considering the strains placed on care systems by the COVID-19 pandemic, this book looks afresh at what makes home-based care possible or impossible and how these considerations can help establish a deeper understanding necessary for good policy and practice.

Life at Home for People with a Dementia provides an evidence-based and readable account of improving life at home for people with a dementia and their families. There are estimated to be 47 million people with a dementia worldwide, the majority of whom will live, or want to live, in their own home. Yet there is a major shortcoming in available knowledge on what life is like for people with a dementia living at home. Most research focuses on care in hospitals or care homes, and takes a medical perspective. This book bridges this gap in knowledge by providing a comprehensive and critical overview of the best available evidence on enabling people with a dementia to live well at home from the viewpoint of those living with the condition, and in the context of global policy drivers on ageing and health, as well as technological advances. The book includes chapters on citizenships – that is, the diversity of people living with a dementia – enabling life at home, rethinking self-management, the ethics and care of people with a dementia at home, technological care and citizenship, and sharing responsibilities. It concludes with a care manifesto in which we set out a vision for improving life at home for people with a dementia that covers the areas of professional practice, education and care research. By covering a wide range of interrelated topics to advance understanding and practice as to how people with a dementia from diverse backgrounds can be supported to live well at home, this book provides a synthesised, critical and readable understanding of the complexities and risks involved.

The target audience is women between the ages of 42 and 65. They represent the majority of unpaid care givers for loved ones with dementia. Dementia Home Care: How to Prepare Before, During and After will examine taking on the role of care giver and help them make informed decisions about in-home care giving. It will give examples of how to create a safe living space, how to use distraction techniques, and suggest available resources for the care giver. It will emphasize the role of care giver respite and participating in dementia community support to relieve the daily stress of dementia care. Home care giver, Tracy Cram Perkins, will use anecdotes drawn from twelve years of experience. Demetia Home Care will cover aggressive behavior, coping strategies, memory aids, communication aids, and support services. There is a space at the end of each chapter for the reader to record special or humorous moments with their loved ones. And it will address the empty nester experience after the loss of a loved one—to a nursing facility or to death—rarely covered in other books of this genre. This life-lesson of care giving is not meant to destroy us but meant to remind us to take care of ourselves, forgive ourselves, accept ourselves. To know other people trudge up this same hill with us every day. To pay forward kindness in some measure. To know laughter has not abandoned us. At the end, to know some measure of joy. -- Tracy Cram Perkins

With dementia care shifting from institutional to home settings, this book considers the intersections of formal health and social care strategies and family experiences. Drawing on case studies from Canada, it enhances the understanding of good policy and practice in dementia care and the potential for better outcomes for all those concerned.

This book presents the latest research that shows how design thinking, making, and acting contribute to the co-designing and development of products, spaces, and services with people living with dementia. We know that there is currently no cure for the 130+ kinds of dementia that millions of people live with all over the world, but the designed interventions such as the products, spaces, and services described in this book can address stigma, isolation, loss of confidence, and raise awareness and greater understanding of dementia. This book showcases a range of innovative and creative design interventions that have been developed to break the cycle of well-established opinions, strategies, mindsets, and ways of doing that tend to remain unchallenged in the health and social care of people living with dementia. The book will be of interest to scholars working in product design, service design, experience design, architecture, design research, information design, user-centred design, and design for health.

Dementia is a little understood and currently incurable illness, but much can be done to maximise the quality of life for people with the condition. Contented Dementia - by clinical psychologist and bestselling author Oliver James - outlines a groundbreaking and practical method for managing dementia that will allow both sufferer and carer to maintain the highest possible quality of life, throughout every stage of the illness. A person with dementia will experience random and increasingly frequent memory blanks relating to recent events. Feelings, however, remain intact, as do memories of past events and both can be used in a special way to substitute for more recent information that has been lost. The SPECAL method (Specialized Early Care for Alzheimer's) outlined in this book works by creating links between past memories and the routine activities of daily life in the present. Drawing on real-life examples and user-friendly tried-and-tested methods, Contented Dementia provides essential information and guidance for carers, relatives and professionals.