Later stages of dementia and palliative care

The Namaste Care approach is focussed on giving comfort and pleasure to people with advanced dementia through sensory stimulation, especially the use of touch, and this book provides extensive guidance on every stage of the process, including harnessing community interest, recruiting and training volunteers, and managing pain and discomfort.

Caring for someone living with advanced Alzheimer disease is a challenge. It can make you feel like you're on a hamster wheel—running in circles, trying the same things over and over with no effect on your loved one. You may also find it difficult to connect with your loved one and to understand what those living with Alzheimer disease are going through. In The Busy Caregiver's Guide to Advanced Alzheimer Disease, Dr. Jennifer Stelter, a psychologist working in memory care, shares a new model designed to help caregivers understand, cope with, and handle some of the most challenging behaviors associated with the disease while encouraging and reinforcing independence and quality of life for their loved ones. Her Dementia Connection Model, which is based on current scientific research, will aid you in forging a positive bond with your loved one with less frustration. Win-win!
Also available as an audiobook

As dementia progresses, the person with dementia will gradually become more dependent on others for all their care. This booklet is designed to provide information about what to expect in the last stage of dementia. It highlights some issues that may be useful to consider, including what happens as the end of life nears and after death has occurred.

This book investigates how people living with late-stage dementia can engage in communication and social interaction. Based on empirical research, it explores the remaining communicative resources of people living with cognitive impairment (e.g., intercorporeal interaction, bodily gestures, gaze), presenting the agency of the person with dementia as an integral part of their relations with others. The book provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for analyzing, describing, and understanding communication in late-stage dementia, and explores the use of video ethnography to record and analyze non-verbal, bodily interaction.

Many have experienced a loved one coming to the end of their life in a hospital - over-treated, infantilised and, worst of all, facing a death without dignity. Families are being herded into making decisions that are not to the benefit of the patient. This book aims to equip people to ask about the options that doctors in hospital should offer but mostly don't. It highlights alternate, gentler options for patients and their loved ones that can be much more sympathetic to the final wishes of most people facing the end of their lives.

Letting Go is an important and timely introduction to, and discussion of, the kinds of decisions that individuals, families, and medical personnel face in a medical crisis. It shows us how to start thinking about our end-of-life stage before we get there; how to make an advance care plan that will help people make decisions on our behalf; and how we can maintain our dignity and autonomy for as long as possible.

Learn
- about indicators that the disease has progressed into its final stages and how to provide the most effective comfort care
- how to communicate when there are no words through visual, auditory, and physical signals of connection
- about physical changes and the importance of primitive reflexes
- techniques for a consistent positive physical approach
- about different care approaches, from health promotion to compensatory care
- about advanced directives, living will, DNR orders, palliative and hospice care
- about giving the person with dementia permission to pass without giving up on them (Letting Go vs. Giving Up)
Available from the library to borrow (physical resource)