Including the Person with Dementia in Designing and Delivering Care

Elizabeth Barnett is a Research Fellow at the Open University Business School, with a doctorate in social policy from the University of Bath. Her publications include the opening chapter of the Centre for Policy on Ageing's State of the Art in Dementia Care. From a background in health service management, she went on to train a wide range of care professionals across the UK in person-centred approaches to care and Dementia Care Mapping.

“I need to be ME!” This poignant cry comes from one of the persons with dementia whose residential care is the subject of this book and it really sums up what the book is about. It is indeed about designing and delivering care and describes in some detail way discovering and assessing the feelings of the clients that are receiving this care and how this knowledge, shared amongst all that are involved, can increase the well-being of the clients. What makes it so interesting and so moving is the author's passionate and compassionate understanding of the unique value of all persons. She used the interpretation of the verbal and non-verbal communication of clients to arrive at some understanding of their feelings: feelings of loss of memory, loved ones, home and self-worth sometimes appearing as anger or depression and withdrawal. No one seems previously to have thought to include clients' views in planning for their changed lives because it tends to be assumed that people with dementia are living in a state of a sort of anaesthesia and this is not so. The author's thesis is that all, managers, staff, carers and family and clients are independent and important. This, and the fact that we are all involved, either through family or friends, or indeed fear for our own futures as part of the increasingly aging population, makes this a fascinating and caring book, appealing to a much wider readership than its title would perhaps suggest.

• Foreword by Mary Marshall. Introduction. 1. Why Listen? 2. How Can We Listen? 3. The Story of Green House. 4. What the Clients Said. 5. What the Clients Experienced. 6. What Other People Said. 7. What Can Happen when We Start to Listen. 8. The Costs of Care. References. Index.