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This book has been created to support people who have decided to care for a person (newly) diagnosed with one of the underlying causes of Dementia. The book is also suitable for professional Carers.

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Dementia is a syndrome - usually of a chronic or progressive nature - which there is deterioration in cognitive function (i.e. the ability to process thought) beyond what might be expected from normal ageing. It affects memory, thinking, orientation, comprehension, calculation, learning capacity, language, and judgement. Consciousness is not affected. The impairment in cognitive function is commonly accompanied, and occasionally preceded, by deterioration in emotional control, social behavior, or motivation.
(WHO Dementia factsheet April 2012)

This book has been created to support people who have decided to care for a person newly diagnosed with one of the underlying causes of Dementia. Those who have started to care already some time ago as well as those who work in professional care may find it also useful. This book does not tell about Dementia and the underlying causes (although certain information will be integrated in some chapters) but highlights situations of the private Carer and her/his social environment with the aim to guide them through a very demanding time of care.

The book addresses the private Carer in eleven Chapters and guides him through her/his own care experience. Alongside two learning modules it contains the description and explanation of individual Dementia symptoms and advises on how to deal with those symptoms as a private Carer when they occur. The author refers also about the very sensitive topic of death and dying with which private Carers of people living with Dementia are mostly left alone.

This book combines evidence based facts and personal and professional care experience with the emphasis on the private Carer.

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Gross, Astrid
Astrid Gross started her professional career as a Nurse in Germany in 1983 when little was known about Dementia. Much later she realised that many of the elderly people in her care had lived with Dementia. Before coming to the UK, where she also was involved in the care of Dementia patients, a thrombosis was discovered in her father´s leg during a hospital investigation. While the thrombosis was treated, it became apparent, that her father had suffered mini-strokes in the brain which affected his cognitive abilities with the result that he developed severe symptoms of vascular Dementia. This event and the observations during his care set the corner stones for the great interest of the author in Dementia care and the situation of private Carers which accumulated in this book.

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