Topic guides: Resilience and dementia: Content

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Dementia Australia resources

Resilience presented by Sandra Kay
In this video we are joined by Dementia Australia expert Sandra Kay, exploring what resilience is, why it is important and how you can develop it. The video will also look at ways to acknowledge lifes challenges and explore self-care strategies through building resilience.

Access to valuable information and support can help you understand a diagnosis, cope with changes in behaviour, manage living with dementia, and plan for the future. Dementia Australia provides support so that you, or someone affected by dementia, can be empowered to have the best possible quality of life.

Books

Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience and Well-Being by Linda Graham
Publication Date: 2018
AudioBook - While resilience is innate in the brain, over time we learn unhelpful patterns, which then become fixed in our neural circuitry. But science is now revealing that what previously seemed hardwired can be rewired, and Bouncing Back shows us how. With powerful, time-tested exercises, Linda Graham guides us in rebuilding our core well-being and disaster-proofing our brains.
Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant
Publication Date: 2017
Resilience comes from deep within us and from support outside us. Even after the most devastating events, it is possible to grow by finding deeper meaning and gaining greater appreciation in our lives. Option B illuminates how to help others in crisis, develop compassion for ourselves, raise strong children, and create resilient families, communities, and workplaces. Many of these lessons can be applied to everyday struggles, allowing us to brave whatever lies ahead. Two weeks after losing her husband, Sheryl was preparing for a father-child activity. "I want Dave," she cried. Her friend replied, "Option A is not available," and then promised to help her make the most of Option B.
It's OK That You're Not OK by Megan Devine
Publication Date: 2017
The author poses a new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we try to help others who have endured tragedy. She debunks the culturally prescribed goal of returning to a normal, "happy" life, replacing it with a middle path, one that invites us to build a life alongside grief rather than seeking to overcome it.
Also available as audioBook
Resilience: How to Manage Stress, Maintain Balance, and Do More by Stephen R. Covey
Publication Date: 2012
Audiobook - Dr. Covey challenges you to rethink how you use your time, learn to recognize and focus on higher leverage activities, and learn to plan weekly around your key roles and goals in order to maintain balance and effectiveness. This webinar will help you find relief from the stress you currently feel.
Aging with Agency: Building Resilience, Confronting Challenges, and Navigating Eldercare by Sandi Peters
Publication Date: 2020
Sandi Peters shows us that growing older need not mean the end of personal growth. In fact, late adulthood can prove to be the most meaningful and transformative period of one's life. The key, says Peters, is the development of one's inner life, and with it a shift in one's relation to the aging process.

Video content

The three secrets of resilient people
Dr Lucy Hone is a resilience expert who thought she found her calling supporting people to recover following the Christchurch earthquake. She had no idea that her personal journey was about to take her to a far darker place. In this powerful and courageous talk, she shares the three strategies that got her through an unimaginable tragedy⁠—and offers a profound insight on human suffering. Dr Lucy Hone is a director of the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing & Resilience, a research associate at AUT University, a published academic researcher, best-selling author and contributor to Psychology Today.

Journal articles

Resilience in older people living with dementia – A narrative analysis (2021)
Dominant discourses surrounding dementia tend to focus on narratives of loss and decline. Simultaneously, individuals living with dementia are vulnerable to being dispossessed of personal narratives supportive of identity and well-being. How older people with dementia story their experiences of resilience in this context has not previously been investigated.
Buggins, S.-L., Clarke, C., & Wolverson, E. (2021). Resilience in older people living with dementia – A narrative analysis. Dementia, 20(4), 1234–1249.
Living with a parent with dementia: A family resilience study (2017)
The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with family resilience in families caring for a parent with dementia. It was found that acceptance, optimism, positive communication patterns, family connectedness, spirituality, social support, economic resources and the effective management of symptoms helped these families adapt to the burdens of dementia care. In addition to expanding the literature regarding family resilience, the findings could be used to develop interventions tailored to the needs of these families caring for a parent with dementia to create a family environment that enhances adjustment and adaptation.
Deist, M., & Greeff, A. P. (2017). Living with a parent with dementia: A family resilience study. Dementia, 16(1), 126–141.
Narrative citizenship, resilience and inclusion with dementia (2016)
There has been little research that addresses the importance of place in enabling resilience and citizenship – most to date focussing on these as a characteristic of the individual. This paper reports on findings from a qualitative study that aimed to explore the everyday experiences of living with dementia within rural and semi-urban communities.
Clarke, C. L., & Bailey, C. (2016). Narrative citizenship, resilience and inclusion with dementia: On the inside or on the outside of physical and social places. Dementia, 15(3), 434–452.

Websites

American Psychological Association (APA)
Building your resilience
We all face trauma, adversity and other stresses. Here’s a roadmap for adapting to life-changing situations, and emerging even stronger than before.
APA is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States
Resilience - Dementia Carers Count
A range of resources particularly aimed at people caring for someone with dementia.

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For library information and support please contact library@dementia.org.au or call 03 9816 5790