Caring for the Alzheimer Patient: A Practical Guide

Six million people in the United States are now Alzheimer caregivers, but their ranks could double in coming years as the number of older people at risk for developing Alzheimer's Disease rises drastically. While more research is being done on this disease, new caregivers remain in desperate need of helpful suggestions and emotional support. Caring for the Alzheimer Patient received broad critical acclaim as an important contribution to the limited literature on this devastating disease. The overwhelming support for a third edition indicates the continuing urgent need to deliver important information to countless caregivers, families, and skilled care workers who are indirectly affected by Alzheimer's.

This essential volume, now greatly revised to include the latest research and information on the disease, contains chapters by highly qualified experts on the medical aspects of the dementia caused by Alzheimer's; optimal living environments for Alzheimer patients; techniques for enhancing memory, orientation, and communication in Alzheimer patients; selecting appropriate nursing homes; the benefits of support groups for Alzheimer families; the reliability of newsmaking research and so-called medical breakthroughs; and more.

The book contains black-and-white illustrations.

The book contains black-and-white illustrations.

David O. Staats

This book discusses Alzheimer's disease: how to care for persons who have it and how families caring for persons with Alzheimer's disease are affected. The purpose is to provide information on the disease, aspects of caregiving, and the impact of the disease on the caregivers. The audience is primarily the lay public, especially those caring for a person with Alzheimer's disease and also health professionals. This book has useful pictorials, but the references cited are far too technical in many instances for a lay audience. The concept of this book — to provide information to families caring for persons with Alzheimer's disease — is a good one, but this book fails to deliver. In some spots, it is written at a level more appropriate for instructing healthcare professionals than the lay public. In other spots, concepts of pathophysiology and treatment presented are outdated and passe.

Dippel, Raye Lynne, PhD; Hutton, J. Thomas, MD, PhD (St Mary of the Plains Hospital, Lubbock, TX)

The contributors represent the specialties of gerontology, neurology, family practice, psychiatry, psychology, nutrition, and communication disorders. Most are from academic medical centers and hospitals in Texas. Institutions prominently represented include Univ of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, Texas Tech, Baylor, Texas A&M, Lamar Univ in Beaumont, and St Mary of the Plains Hospital in Lubbock.