Content Area

   Reconsidering Dementia Series

Many thousands of people are diagnosed with dementia each year. Worldwide, the trend is that people are being diagnosed at much earlier stages. In addition, families and friends increasingly provide support to those affected by dementia over a prolonged period. Many people, both including those diagnosed with dementia and those who care for and support them, have an appetite to understand their condition.  

The Reconsidering Dementia Series is an interdisciplinary collection published by Open University Press that covers contemporary issues to challenge and engage readers in thinking deeply about the topic. The dementia field has developed rapidly in its scope and practice over the past ten years and books in this series will unpack not only what this means for the student, academic and practitioner, but also for all those affected by dementia.

Reconsidering Dementia Series

The Reconsidering Dementia book series takes its inspiration from the late Professor Tom Kitwood’s seminal text Dementia Reconsidered published in 1997 which, at the time, revolutionised how dementia care was conceptualised. The book series editors worked together on the 2nd Edition of this book entitled Dementia Reconsidered Revisited: The person still comes first. This 2019 publication was a reprint of the original text by Tom Kitwood alongside contemporary commentaries for each chapter written by current experts. Many topics in the field of dementia care, however, were simply unheard of in Kitwood’s lifetime. The subsequent titles in this series are cutting-edge scholarly texts that challenge and engage readers to think deeply. They draw on theoretical understandings, contemporary research and experience to critically reflect on their topic in great depth.

Dawn Brooker & Keith Oliver

The Reconsidering Dementia book series is jointly commissioned and edited by Professor Emeritus Dawn Brooker MBE and by Dr Keith Oliver. Dawn has been active in the field of dementia care since the 1980’s as a clinician and an academic. She draws on her experience and international networks to bring together a series of books on the most pertinent issues in the field. Keith is one of the foremost international advocates for those living with dementia. He also brings an insightful perspective of his own and others’ experience of what it means to live with dementia gained since his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2010.

 

Dementia Reconsidered Revisited: The person still comes first

The original Dementia Reconsidered: The Person Comes First by Tom Kitwood was published by Open University Press in 1997.

The editor of this new edition, Dawn Brooker, was mentored by Tom Kitwood. She has drawn together a remarkable group of writers to provide a commentary on Kitwood’s work. This new edition reproduces the original chapters but provides extra content from subject experts to update the book to a contemporary level.

Key features include:

  • On being a person
  • Dementia as a psychiatric category
  • How personhood is undermined
  • Personhood maintained
  • The experience of dementia
  • Improving care: The next step forward
  • The caring organization
  • Requirements of a caregiver
  • The task of cultural transformation

About the authors:

Professor Tom Kitwood
Professor Tom Kitwood’s seminal text Dementia Reconsidered published in 1997 which, at the time, revolutionised how dementia care was conceptualised. The book series editors worked together on the 2nd Edition of this book entitled Dementia Reconsidered Revisited: The person still comes first.

Professor Dawn Brooker 
Dawn has been active in the field of dementia care since the 1980’s as a clinician and an academic. She draws on her experience and international networks to bring together a series of books on the most pertinent issues in the field.

 

Dementia and Psychotherapy Reconsidered

Dementia and Psychotherapy Reconsidered is intended not only for psychotherapists and counsellors, but for clinicians and families who want to find ways of talking about dementia with the people living with dementia that they care for.

There is little opportunity for people living with dementia to talk about their experiences and what is happening to them. This often makes it harder for them to adjust to, and to accept, the diagnosis. Dementia and Psychotherapy Reconsidered introduces a new and distinctive way of helping people to talk about their dementia. Each of the four sections is augmented with examples from the author’s 30 years of clinical and research experience and offers an accessible approach from mainstream psychotherapeutic and psychological frameworks.

Key features include:

  • Emphasising the importance of psychological processes such as loss and threat in the lives of people living with dementia
  • Setting out a model of adjustment to dementia and outlining how talking about dementia needs to be tailored to the stage of change
  • Outlining the research and clinical evidence underpinning psychotherapy, whether this is delivered to individuals, couples or to groups
  • Showing how psychotherapy and counselling can be adapted to accommodate the client’s cognitive changes

About the author:

Professor Richard Cheston
Richard Cheston worked as a Clinical Psychologist in the NHS before becoming Professor of Dementia Research at the University of the West of England, UK in 2012.

 

Education and Training in Dementia Care: A Person-Centred Approach

In the last twenty years, the evidence-base for how to provide person-centred care for people with dementia has grown significantly. Despite this, until recently there has been little evidence as to how to provide training and education for the dementia workforce.

This book provides an evidence-based, practical resource for people intending to develop, deliver, review, or commission education and training for the dementia workforce.

Throughout the book:

  • Considers the importance of informal routes and mechanisms for
    workforce development
  • Examines the importance of context and setting conditions for
    successful implementation of training at individual, service and
    organisational level
  • Contains up-to-date international research evidence, case studies
    and vignettes

About the authors:

Claire Surr
Claire is Professor of Dementia Studies and Director of the Centre for Dementia Research at Leeds Beckett University, UK.

Sarah Jane Smith
Sarah Jane is a Reader in Dementia Research at Leeds Beckett University, UK.

Isabelle Latham
Isabelle is Researcher-in-Residence for Hallmark Care Homes, UK and Honorary Senior Research Fellow for the Association for Dementia
Studies at the University of Worcester, UK.

 

Dementia and Ethics Reconsidered

Ethical issues are involved in every decision that is made in connection with someone living with dementia – from decisions about care and treatment to decisions about research and funding.

This book encourages the reader to reconsider ethics in dementia care with the use of ‘patterns of practice’, an innovative idea developed by the author. The book highlights the importance of understanding the person’s narrative, of good communication, high quality care, and expert interpretation of the meaning of situations for people living with dementia.

This book:

  • Reviews ethical theories and approaches in connection with dementia care
  • Considers issues such as such as stigma, quality of life, personhood, and citizenship in relation to dementia
  • Looks at issues relevant to research ethics
  • Presents case vignettes to highlight a complete spectrum of ethical issues that arise in dementia care
  • Is accessibly written for multiple audiences – from people living with dementia to practitioners

About the author:

Julian C. Hughes
Julian C. Hughes was a consultant in old age psychiatry. Having trained in both philosophy and medicine, he was appointed honorary professor of philosophy of ageing at Newcastle University, UK and subsequently professor of old age psychiatry at the University of Bristol, UK. He was deputy chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, UK.

 

Leisure and Everyday Life with Dementia

This edited book will examine leisure in the lives of people with dementia, emphasising the active role people with dementia can play as citizens in contributing to the world in which they live, given opportunities to make choices about their participation in it.

This book will explore:

  • The individual, interactions and relationships
  • Time – how it is used and by whom 
  • Place, places and spaces – their nature, use and meaning

About the editors:

Dr Karen Gray
Dr Karen Gray is a researcher at the University of Bristol, UK. She has wide-ranging experience in researching and evaluating engagement in arts and creative activity for health and wellbeing. 

Dr Chris Russell
Dr Chris Russell is Senior Lecturer with the Association for Dementia Studies at the University of Worcester, UK, where he is Programme Lead for the Post Graduate Certificate in Dementia Studies. 

Jane Twigg
Jane Twigg has a background as a physiotherapist. This was before caring for her mom, who had dementia, including supporting Mom to continue to live in the world. Jane is now living with atypical dementia. She has a passion for life. Long distance walking brings her most joy, giving her a sense of achievement and wellbeing.

 

Reconsidering Neighbourhoods and Living with Dementia: Spaces, Places, and People

This book brings together the key findings of all eight work programmes that made up the ESRC/NIHR Neighbourhoods and Dementia study that was concerned with better understanding how people with dementia navigated and interacted with their neighbourhood on an everyday basis.

This book will explore:

  • The Lived Neighbourhood
  • Neighbourhoods, Measurement and Technology
  • Neighbourhoods and Big Data
  • Personal Well-Being and Neighbourhood Programme Support
  • Bringing it Together and Future Directions 

About the editor:

John Keady
John Keady is a mental health nurse who has been involved in dementia care for over 30 years. Since 2006, he has held a joint appointment between the University of Manchester and the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. He was the Chief Investigator of the Neighbourhoods study.

 

Talking with Dementia Reconsidered 

This book places people living with a diagnosis of dementia at its core, providing each person with the opportunity to express themselves whilst viewing their lives in relation to the Kitwood flower model.

Authored by a person living with dementia, an experienced consultant clinical psychologist and a

respected academic, the three combine to amplify and showcase the words of the Fifteen people

living with dementia, in an original, authentic and unique way. This book:

  • Gives readers transparent insight into the lives, hopes and fears of a diverse range of people living with various forms of dementia
  • Shows how each petal of the Kitwood flower with love at its centre is a helpful framework for each person to describe their life
  • Links the interviews with issues, frameworks, policy and practice
  • Examines what stakeholders can take from this book to advance dementia care

About the authors:

Dr Keith Oliver 
Keith voluntarily works hard for charities and the NHS. He retired from being a head teacher when diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 55. Keith is Series editor for the Reconsidering Dementia Series.

Reinhard Guss  
Reinhard is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Neuropsychologist with over thirty years’ experience working in the fi eld of dementia in the UK National Health Service.

Dr Ruth Bartlett  
Ruth is Associate Professor at the University of Southampton, UK, co-director of the University’s Doctoral Training Centre in Dementia Care and Principal Investigator of an interdisciplinary, cross-faculty research project funded by the Alzheimer’s Society.

Coming soon

Oyebode and Rook, Reconsidering Young Onset Dementia

This edited book will bring together cutting-edge contributions from researchers, practitioners, people living with young onset dementia, family and friends, about the distinctive aspects of having dementia at a younger age and the sort of support that is helpful.

Clare et al, Living with Dementia Reconsidered

Drawing on a decade of research evidence and the active involvement of people with dementia and carers, this new book outlines the what the largest study of dementia in the community in Great Britain tells us about those things which make a difference to quality of life for both people with dementia and carers.


The covers have all been designed by people living with dementia: Cheston: Keith Oliver, Surr: Keith Oliver, Hughes: George Rook, Keady: Frances Isaacs, Oliver et al: Keith Oliver, Gray et al: Jane Twigg, Oyebode & Rook: Gail Gregory, Clare et al: Jacqui Bingham and Julia Burton

Praise for the series

Dementia and Ethics Reconsidered

This book is totally brilliant. The outstanding author Dr. Julian Hughes must now be considered the foremost ethicist of his generation when it comes to caring for individuals with dementia … This is now the book that everyone who cares about dementia and ethics must read, discuss, and implement. It is a huge contribution.”

Stephen G. Post PhD, Director, Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care & Bioethics Stony Brook University School of Medicine, USA

Dementia and Psychotherapy Reconsidered

“The book is lucidly written so can be valuable not only to specialists but to anyone whose work or personal life brings them into contact with dementia.”

Tom Dening, Professor of Dementia Research, Mental Health & Clinical Neurosciences, University
of Nottingham, UK

Education and Training in Dementia Care: A Person-Centred Approach

“This book is a must read for those wanting to understand, design and improve our approach to workforce knowledge in dementia care.”

Paul Edwards, Director of Clinical Services, Dementia UK

Leisure and Everyday Life with Dementia

"This is the most important edited collection to emerge from leisure studies in the last thirty years.”

Professor Karl Spracklen, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Leeds Beckett University, UK

Reconsidering Neighbourhoods and Living with Dementia: Spaces, Places, and People

“This book holds the story of a monumental research effort… It provides a moving, thoughtful, understanding of what “neighbourhood” means and is a beacon for efforts aimed at improving the quality of life of all involved.”

Steven R. Sabat, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., USA

Talking with Dementia Reconsidered 

“This latest book will help so many people - those with dementia and their loved ones.”

Victoria Derbyshire, British Journalist, Newsreader and Broadcaster

Talking with Dementia Reconsidered 

“The voice of lived experience is ever growing and without doubt we should never miss an opportunity like this to listen, capture and learn from it.”

Paola Barbarino, CEO, Alzheimer’s Disease International

 

Interested in using these titles?


If you are interested in using these titles on your course, contact our Marketing team at:

[email protected]