Veteran clinicians offer a unique framework for understanding the psychological origins of behaviors typical of Alzheimer's and other dementias, and for providing appropriate care for patients as they decline. Guidelines are rooted in the theory of retrogenesis in dementia--that those with the condition regress in stages toward infancy--as well as knowledge of associated brain damage. The objective is to meet patients where they are developmentally to best be able to address the tasks of their daily lives, from eating and toileting to preventing falls and wandering. This accessible information gives readers a platform for creating strategies that are respectful, sensitive, and tailored to individual needs, thus avoiding problems that result when care is ineffective or counterproductive. Featured in the coverage: Abilities and disabilities during the different stages of Alzheimer's disease. Strategies for keeping the patient's finances safe. Pain in those with dementia, and why it is frequently ignored. "Help! I've lost my mother and can't find her!" Sexuality and intimacy in persons with dementia. Instructive vignettes of successful caring interventions. Given the projected numbers of individuals expected to develop dementing conditions, Care Giving for Alzheimer's Disease will find immediate interest among clinical psychologists, health psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and primary care physicians.

Veteran clinicians offer a unique framework for understanding the psychological origins of behaviors typical of Alzheimer's and other dementias, and for providing appropriate care for patients as they decline. Guidelines are rooted in the theory of retrogenesis in dementia--that those with the condition regress in stages toward infancy--as well as knowledge of associated brain damage. The objective is to meet patients where they are developmentally to best be able to address the tasks of their daily lives, from eating and toileting to preventing falls and wandering. This accessible information gives readers a platform for creating strategies that are respectful, sensitive, and tailored to individual needs, thus avoiding problems that result when care is ineffective or counterproductive. Featured in the coverage: Abilities and disabilities during the different stages of Alzheimer's disease. Strategies for keeping the patient's finances safe. Pain in those with dementia, and why it is frequently ignored. "Help! I've lost my mother and can't find her!" Sexuality and intimacy in persons with dementia. Instructive vignettes of successful caring interventions. Given the projected numbers of individuals expected to develop dementing conditions, Care Giving for Alzheimer's Disease will find immediate interest among clinical psychologists, health psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and primary care physicians.

Healthcare providers are faced with a daunting job. Daily, they have encounters with those who are wounded and broken by disease - physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual disease. Patients look to their caregivers for healing, for advice, for comfort and solace. But when the caregivers are too busy, too tired and too pulled by what seem to be tangential issues to be fully present to the patients, they too can experience a sense of "disease". Where is the joy in serving? How can they recapture the initial dream that motivated them to enter the healthcare professions? This book examines the spiritual vision that initially motivated and continues to nourish many caregivers. One can look at healthcare as something more than a business concerned with the bottom line, but rather as a ministry and what that ministry means to patients. This book seeks to inspire, motivate and instruct healthcare professionals regarding the integration of the spiritual dimension into their practices. Through the broadening of care to include awareness, recognition and responsiveness to the spiritual needs of others, healthcare professionals - from the physician to the nursing assistant and the hospital porter - reclaim their own vision and rediscover the meaning of service. This book gives readers concrete strategies to make the spiritual dimension come alive in their own lives as well as in their daily interactions with patients, families, peers, and indeed the entire healthcare team.