This 426-page lightweight softback pocketbook is a miniaturised heavyweight textbook of up-to-date guidance on approaches to dementia assessment and care. Small print and wafer thin pages remind us of the Bible. In some places attractiveness of text has been sacrificed to brevity, although a bullet-point style is balanced by short paragraphs which makes it easy to read. Some of the many acronyms used take a while to get used to.
While the book is aimed at ‘consultants, specialist nurses and allied health professionals in geriatrics, neurology, old age psychiatry and palliative care’, I recommend this book as a testament to excellence in care to help all of us who meet patients with dementia, whatever our background.
GPs are often involved in community care for those with dementia. They may be called to care homes they have never visited, where decisions made in the night must stand the scrutiny of others in the cold light of day. Decision making in an unfamiliar situation where advance care planning is patchy is never easy.
The ethical and legal aspects of caring for patients whose capacity is altered by cognitive impairment reminds us that we need a sound grasp of the facts in the difficult consultations we have with some of our patients with dementia. Advance care planning enables patients and their families to have important conversations early after dementia is diagnosed, so that the wishes of the patient and their priorities for care when they approach the end of their lives can be recorded.
Barbara Pointon’s love of her ‘wonderful husband’ who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 51 years and was cared for by her until his death 16 years later, is so powerful it is worth buying the book for this alone. This textbook, within the pathological and pharmacological, the legal and the social, has soul. If you have never read a book about palliative medicine or dementia then this is an excellent place to start.
- © British Journal of General Practice 2012