Your Guide to Understanding and Dealing with Dementia

by Keith Souter

There is an average of one new case of dementia every four seconds. Dementia encompasses a range of brain diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease.They cause cognitive impairment and are much more likely to occur with age. Dementia has a serious effect on the lives of not only its sufferers, but also has a significant impact on their family and friends. This book gives the basic information needed to understand what dementia is, how to recognise it and, most essentially, how to deal with it, including details • The different types of dementia, risk factors and investigation • The various treatments and supports available • Daily living, diet, exercise and attitude.

274 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 5, 2015

About the author

Keith Souter is a part time doctor, medical journalist and writer. He writes general non-fiction, books on medicine and health and novels in 4 genres.

He lives in Yorkshire within arrow-shot of the ruins of a medieval castle, the setting for two of his historical crime novels - THE PARDONER'S CRIME and THE FOOL'S FOLLY.

His latest novel THE CURSE OF THE BODY SNATCHERS published by G-Press is the first in series of The Adventures of Jack Moon. Aimed at 8-13 year olds, it is a spooky tale set in Victorian London.

Keith is represented by Isabel Atherton at Creative Authors http://www.creativeauthors.co.uk

G-Press and Golden Guides Press http://www.goldenguidespress.com/_/Bo...

Blogs
http://theadventuresofjackmoon.blogsp...

http://west-uist-chronicle.blogspot.c...

Reviews

[Harrison Large · Rating 4 out of 5]

I work with dementia so it's good to occasionally read a book to couple (for lack of a better term) my practical experiences to the theory.

This was a very basic but all encompassing book about dementia and I can see this being very helpful to the people it is aimed at - relatives of and the individual themselves. The things I didn't know were building on a lot of stuff that I did.

Overall there needs to be more detail on care homes at the end, as that's the big anxiety for people with dementia and their families and the information there was bare bones. Every home is different but there is more to say than just a definition. A Viz top tips section would work wonders there.

[Am Y · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book for an overall understanding of all kinds of dementia. I read this in hopes of finding out what was happening to my father and grandaunt, who're both in their 80s and displaying troubling signs of senility.

The book states that the 2 main kinds of dementia are Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. The former is caused by deterioration of the brain mainly triggered by inflammation, and the latter by blood clots or damage to blood vessels in the brain. There are other types of dementia too but they are less common.

Symptoms, disease progression, treatment and care are all covered for each of the dementia types.

After reading this, I realised that one of my uncles who passed away a few years ago, had exactly the same symptoms from one of the dementias as described in the book - he had actually suffered a mini stroke (which none of us knew at the time) which had caused him to fall and have absolutely no recollection of what happened later on. This was actually a type of dementia (which we did not know of either).

If I had come across this book earlier, I would have at least known what was happening to my uncle at the time. The doctors offered no explanation whatsoever; only comments that "this is common" in the elderly. Now, according to the book, "dementia is NOT a normal form of aging", so we should not be content to just accept that a loved one has it, or that we ourselves should be prepared to get it when we age. The fact that dementia is becoming more common is very troubling indeed.

Unfortunately, according to the author, no one yet knows why certain people get dementia. As mentioned, in Alzheimer's cases, the brain suffers inflammation. But what causes this inflammation is as yet unknown. And in the case of vascular dementia, we also do not know what causes blood to thicken and clot, or why blood vessels in the brain may become damaged. One of the current and more common "treatments" for vascular dementia is aspirin, which, though effective, comes with a whole list of side effects.

CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) is not discussed in this book. Only western medicine and treatments are considered.

Lastly, I would have rated this book higher if not for the appalling English. The author loves using the word "commoner" (as opposed to "more common"), and it was extremely distracting to keep seeing this word in sentences because it sounded so weird. (Note that "the Oxford English Dictionary's entry for 'commoner' only lists it as a noun. Wiktionary's entry does include an adjectival form, and it is defined as 'more common,' but calls this usage 'less desirable' and 'much less commonly used' than 'more common.'") The worst part is that the author doesn't standardise his usage of "commoner" and "more common", so in some sentences you'll actually see the two being used side by side: e.g. "___ are more common than others, and ___ commoner in certain parts." There were also many instances of poorly-formed sentences and badly-worded phrases which made for a very painful and difficult reading experience.

Note: This review is for the paperback edition.

[Stephen Coleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book in the returns tray at Kendal Library and am glad that I did.

My interest was just to learn more about this topic, although I suspect it is probably a better read for someone going through some form of dementia diagnosis. It covers the whole gambit from the different types right through to coping with the different stages of dementia and treatments.