Better Living With Dementia: Implications for Individuals, Families, Communities, and Societies highlights evidence-based best practices for improving the lives of patients with dementia. It presents the local and global challenges of these patients, also coupling foundational knowledge with specific strategies to overcome these challenges. The book examines the trajectory of the disease, offers stage-appropriate practices and strategies to improve quality of life, provides theoretical and practical frameworks that inform on ways to support and care for individuals living with dementia, includes evidence-based recommendations for research, and details global examples of care approaches that work.

With the number of elderly persons needing long-term care expected to double to 14 million over the next two decades, assisted living has become the popular choice for housing or care. Assisted living represents a promising model of long-term care that blurs the sharp distinction between nursing homes and community-based care and reduces the gap between receiving long-term care in one's own home and in an "institution." Assisted Living: Needs, Practices, and Policies in Residential Care for the Elderly examines the evolving field of residential care and focuses on national issues of regulation, reimbursement, and staffing. The book is based on a four-state study of assisted living facilities and describes the facilities, the persons residing in them and their needs, and how the services vary by facility. Because one-third to two-thirds of residents in assisted living facilities have cognitive impairment, special attention is devoted to dementia care. The book also focuses on how today's long-term health care environment evolved, and it examines the future direction and implications of assisted living. Assisted Living: Needs, Practices, and Policies in Residential Care for the Elderly brings together a group of nationally recognized experts to help define the types of residential care that should be encouraged and sets guidelines for selecting an appropriate type of facility.

Among the issues confronting America is long-term care for frail, older persons and others with chronic conditions and functional limitations that limit their ability to care for themselves. Improving the Quality of Long-Term Care takes a comprehensive look at the quality of care and quality of life in long-term care, including nursing homes, home health agencies, residential care facilities, family members and a variety of others. This book describes the current state of long-term care, identifying problem areas and offering recommendations for federal and state policymakers. Who uses long-term care? How have the characteristics of this population changed over time? What paths do people follow in long term care? The committee provides the latest information on these and other key questions. This book explores strengths and limitations of available data and research literature especially for settings other than nursing homes, on methods to measure, oversee, and improve the quality of long-term care. The committee makes recommendations on setting and enforcing standards of care, strengthening the caregiving workforce, reimbursement issues, and expanding the knowledge base to guide organizational and individual caregivers in improving the quality of care.

This open access book outlines the challenges of supporting the health and wellbeing of older adults around the world and offers examples of solutions designed by stakeholders, healthcare providers, and public, private and nonprofit organizations in the United States. The solutions presented address challenges including: providing person-centered long-term care, making palliative care accessible in all healthcare settings and the home, enabling aging-in-place, financing long-term care, improving care coordination and access to care, delivering hospital-level and emergency care in the home and retirement community settings, merging health and social care, supporting people living with dementia and their caregivers, creating communities and employment opportunities that are accessible and welcoming to those of all ages and abilities, and combating the stigma of aging. The innovative programs of support and care in Aging Well serve as models of excellence that, when put into action, move health spending toward a sustainable path and greatly contribute to the well-being of older adults.