Tag: dementia

Posted on Dementia

Risk Assessment and Management for Living Well with Dementia – An Interview with author Charlotte Clarke

“People with dementia continue to have decisions about them made by other people who bring to that decision their own views of safety and risk – these can be very profound decisions such as where someone will live in the future. It continues to be essential to develop services that respect the views of people living with dementia so that the care they receive is of high quality (and this is not necessarily care that is ‘risk free’).”

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Posted on Dementia

The Reverend Albert Jewell answers one JKP Reader’s Questions about his latest book, Spirituality and Personhood in Dementia

This month, we offered one of our readers a chance to preview a copy of the Revd Jewell’s latest JKP title, Spirituality and Personhood in Dementia, and ask him some questions about it: “Q: To what extent and how far has your exploration of dementia enhanced your understanding of spirituality? A: …People with dementia in the main live in the present moment because the past tends to get dismantled. To be able to live fully in the present, rather than be bugged by the past or worried about the future, is a great gift and one I covet…”

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Posted on Counselling

Reminiscence and Life Story Work – The Importance of Remembering Our Life’s Journey

“From infancy to old age, the recall of personal memories serves to establish identity, safeguard self esteem, assist communication, enhance relationships, and preserve and transmit personal, family and community history. By valuing memories people are helped to value themselves when developmental challenges, current circumstances, transitions, failing health and increasing age assail us.”

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Posted on Counselling

Counselling Older People with Alcohol Problems – An Interview with JKP authors Mike Fox and Lesley Wilson

” I find that older people are often patronised, and their ability to recover and make changes in their lives is often not acknowledged. Dr Martin Blanchard speaks in the Foreword of a ‘therapeutic nihilism’ that exists in attitudes towards the client group described in the book. One effect of this is that older people are often expected to fit into generic treatment systems, when they clearly have needs that will not be met by those systems. Thus the need for a specialist approach such as the book describes.”

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Posted on Dementia

Providing Good Care at Night for Older People – An Interview with JKP author Diana Kerr

“Night staff have to provide the same level of person centred, individualised care as day staff. Their primary task is seen as the promotion of sleep. This can often mean that they feel compelled to get people back to bed as quickly as possible. Often, however, residents need, time, food, activity, and TLC as well as an opportunity to talk and discuss, particularly their fears and worries.”

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Posted on Arts therapies

‘Creative Care and the Capacity to Play’ – An excerpt from The Creative Arts in Dementia Care, by Jill Hayes with Sarah Povey

“In working in dementia care we need often to let ourselves become foolish, unconventional, stop making sense. I have been thrilled to meet staff who at the drop of a hat will dress up, play the guitar, sing uproariously…or who have the capacity to sit quietly with someone without an agenda. It is this joy of the crazy and the still, this lightness of being, which is refreshing and life-promoting in the work that we do. We can play with balloons, blow bubbles, doodle, improvise. We don’t have to make a finished product. By creatively and somatically being with a person we can instil a sense of safety, of physical and emotional security.”

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