Best Friends™ Approach to Dementia Care

Virginia Bell, M.S.W., is Program Consultant for the Greater Kentucky/Southern Indiana Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. She is the founder of that association’s award-winning Helping Hand Adult Day Center (now the Best Friends Adult Day Center). Ms. Bell has trained innumerable staff, students, and volunteers nationally and internationally in the center of the practices and attitudes that embody the Best Friends approach. She has earned awards for leadership in her community and in the Alzheimer’s field. With her co-author, David Troxel, she has published The Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer’s Care; The Best Friends Staff: Building a Culture of Care in Alzheimer’s Programs; The Best Friends Book of Alzheimer’s Activities, Volume 1 and Volume 2; A Dignified Life, Revised and Expanded: The Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer’s Care—A Guide for Care Partners; and The Best Friends Daily Planner.David Troxel, M.P.H., has become nationally and internationally known for his writing and teaching in the fields of Alzheimer’s disease and long-term care. He has co-authored, with Virginia Bell, 6 influential books (The Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer’s Care; The Best Friends Staff: Building a Culture of Care in Alzheimer’s Programs; The Best Friends Book of Alzheimer’s Activities, Volume 1 and Volume 2; A Dignified Life, Revised and Expanded: The Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer’s Care—A Guide for Care Partners; and The Best Friends Daily Planner), as well as numerous articles relating to Alzheimer’s disease and care and staff development training.David received his Master’s Degree in Public Health from UMDNJ, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (formerly Rutgers Medical School) in 1986.David is a past Executive Board member of the American Public Health Association and is a member of the Ethics Advisory Panel for the United States Alzheimer’s Association. He currently serves as a Program Consultant to the Alzheimer’s Association California Coast Chapter in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties.

“An outstanding guide for anyone involved in the care of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease. The Best Friends™ method is an innovative, sensitive and unique approach that can greatly improve the quality of life for patients with the most devastating disease known to man.”—William R. Markesbery, M.D., past director, Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, University of Kentucky.“Virginia Bell & David Troxel are leaders in the field of aging. Their words will offer caregivers new ideas and new hope as they face the challenge of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.”—Gloria H. Cavanaugh, former President & CEO, American Society on Aging“As a neurologist, I dream about the day that we will find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. Until that time, the Best Friends approach is here to give families practical tools for bringing out the best in persons with Alzheimer’s disease. This is a well-written, insightful book that gives caregivers a life-affirming, practical framework for approaching this difficult disease. I recommend it to my patients and their families.”—Donna Masterman, M.D., Assistant Clinical Professor, Neurology UCLA Medical Center, Clinical Core Director of the UCLA Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.[Bell and Troxel] have laid out a way of relating that is immediately accessible to all involved in dementia and a policy and programme for service provision. …Here is an initiative that is easy to understand and is within the immediate capacity of each of us to deliver.”—Journal of Dementia Care (on The Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer’s Care).