| Contented Dementia: 24-hour Wraparound Care for Lifelong Well-being | 
 enlarge | Author: Oliver James
Publisher: Vermilion
Category: Book
List Price: £17.99
Buy New: £11.69
You Save: £6.30 (35%)
New (22) Used (5) from £10.31
Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 3082
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0091901804
EAN: 9780091901806
ASIN: 0091901804
Publication Date: August 7, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Very Helpful September 26, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I found this short book very helpful and provided me with some tools that extended the work I was already doing with my Mum who suffers from the early stages of dementia. It doesn't provide all the answers and how could it but I would recommend it as part of a wider discovery around the issue.
 An unsettling approach September 21, 2008
10 out of 17 found this review helpful
I found this book unsettling in its view, in its approach, and in its insistence that this is the One True Way to 'handle' dementia patients. I didn't like the infantilising of those sufferers (notably in its insistence that the programme, which works by means of the carer disappearing into the Looking Glass World of the demented-loved-one and creating and recreating one core situation that meant something to them in the past - for instance by playing along with the idea that they are all working in an office together and it's 1955). I didn't like the idea that this infantilising should commence immediately on diagnosis. I didn't like the idea that this Primary Theme should be supplemented by a Health Theme so that an illness or disability from the past could be invoked to help bring the ill person back down to earth on occasion, from the heights of this shared fantasy. I didn't like the idea that everybody who comes into contact with the ill person should also be drawn into the play acting. I didn't like the dogmatic instructions about what must always and never be done. Questions must never be asked, it says, of the demented person, ever. This seems to me wrong and patronising.
The other thing that must be said is that though this book is keen on branding its approach (and is very keen on acronyms) this is a system that many carers, such as myself, have tried before. We have all of us spent time 'through the looking glass' with our loved ones and immersed ourselves in their world and their altered perceptions. It doesn't always work. The ill person can still be unhappy, hostile, confused, violent, as I know from experience.
The Alzheimer's Society gave this book a poor review and shares some of these concerns, I notice.
 It is many years since I have taken a work book to read in bed, and even longer since I have subsequently dreamt about it! September 12, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
As a consultant and trainer working with housing staff, many of whom struggle to work effectively with clients with dementia, I devoured this book with relish, and have droned on endlessly to friends and colleagues about the Specal approach ever since. It challenges many of the professional assumptions about how we relate and communicate with people with dementia, and offers cogent argument for understanding and entering into their reality instead of attempting to drag them into ours.
This book is interesting, practical, well written, and most importantly for me, extremely compassionate. In an ideal world this book would be issued as essential reading to all housing and care staff working with older people.
brilliant September 3, 2008
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
I got the book yesterdy and read it late into the night. I would never have believed that I would find a book on this subject un-putdownable! I can see so much of my mother in Dorothy's case, and I've been doing all the wrong things. This book will be my guide from now on. And what a wondeful personPenny is!
Invaluable Insight and Advice September 1, 2008
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
I only wish I'd read this book before my friend who had dementia died earlier this year. I couldn't put it down. It is written in easily understandable terms and gives encouragement and positiveness in what is often a dark time. If you never buy another book buy this one now. It really will make a difference. I wish that every care/ nursing home would ensure that their staff would read it.
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