The Practical Handbook of Living with Dementia

Isla Parker, Richard Coaten, Mark Hopfenbeck

This wide-ranging book takes a person-centred approach to supporting the person and their families/carers to live with dementia and challenge the stigma attached to the condition. Divided into four parts, it starts with the voices of people with dementia themselves, as they describe their own experience and how they are living with the disease. It moves on to look at how the range of caring and support professions can help people living with dementia and their families plan and prepare for and cope better with their deteriorating condition. It then turns to practical aspects of living with dementia – dementia in the workplace, communication, safety and the role of technology and design in prolonging independence – and day-to-day considerations, such as managing insomnia and eating well. It ends with an inspiring section on the many imaginative ways people with dementia can be helped to discover and continue to enjoy cultural and creative activities that celebrate their lives and promote their abilities.

Mae’r llyfr toreithiog hwn yn mabwysiadu dull sy’n canolbwyntio ar yr unigolyn o gefnogi’r person a’i deulu/gofalwyr i fyw gyda dementia a herio’r stigma sydd ynghlwm â’r cyflwr. Wedi’i rannu’n bedair rhan, mae’n dechrau gyda lleisiau pobl â dementia eu hunain, wrth iddyn nhw ddisgrifio eu profiadau eu hunain a sut maen nhw’n byw gyda’r clefyd. Mae’n symud ymlaen i edrych ar sut y gall yr ystod o broffesiynau gofalu a chefnogi helpu pobl sy’n byw gyda dementia a’u teuluoedd i gynllunio a pharatoi ar gyfer eu cyflwr wrth iddo ddirywio ac ymdopi’n well ag ef. Yna mae’n troi at agweddau ymarferol o fyw gyda dementia – dementia yn y gweithle, cyfathrebu, diogelwch a rôl technoleg a dylunio wrth ymestyn annibyniaeth – ac ystyriaethau o ddydd i ddydd, fel rheoli methu cysgu a bwyta’n dda. Mae’n gorffen gydag adran ysbrydoledig am y nifer o ffyrdd creadigol sydd ar gael i helpu pobl â dementia i ddarganfod a pharhau i fwynhau gweithgareddau diwylliannol a chreadigol sy’n dathlu eu bywydau ac yn hybu eu galluoedd.

Richard Coaten
Richard is passionate about working with people living with dementia and their carers. He has done so since the mid-1980s where following dance and theatre training at Dartington College of Arts, he learned to bring movement and dance to elders living in the Sheffield community and gradually into nursing and residential care homes. Richard practised as a community dance artist and with more training and interest in the psychotherapeutic aspects of hi work, registered as a Dance Movement Psychotherapist (DMP) in 2000. Since that time, his work in the field has grown. Research in the form of a doctorate has followed, alongside 16 years clinical practice in the NHS as a DMP in Old Age Psychiatry. Richard is currently on the Board of the Creative Dementia Arts Network (CDAN) and working on co-editing a new ‘Practical Handbook of Creative Arts and Dementia’ for JKP publishers. He is also helping to train the next generation of DMPs in Romania and Bulgaria.