A relational approach to providing care for a person suffering from dementia

Abstract

An environment that attempts to educate people to recognize the importance of relationships will be more effective in achieving the potential benefits of symptom alleviation identified by the research into Alzheimer's disease outlined in this paper.

Understanding dementia amongst people in minority ethnic and cultural groups

“…Thus, a dialogue which respects dominant South Asian lay beliefs about dementia, whilst also offering alternative ways of understanding, may prove fruitful in relation to finding ways of providing acceptable and appropriate services. This would be consistent with the relational approach to dementia care advocated by Greenwood et al. (2001).…”

Caring connections with older persons with dementia in an acute hospital setting – a hermeneutic interpretation of the staff nurse's experience

“…However traditional biomedical explanations of dementia (Martorell Poveda, 2003) assume a straightforward linear relationship between neuropathology and dementia (Kitwood, 1993; Veyard, 2001). From this perspective dementia as an illness forms the basis of relationship, risking deterministic implications for care‐giving (Kitwood, 1993; Greenwood et al. , 2001).…”

Museum activities in dementia care: Using visual analog scales to measure subjective wellbeing

“…Graham, Stockinger, and Leder (2013) demonstrated that, for people with Alzheimer’s, esthetic judgments are similar to those of healthy adults, providing further evidence that art-based interventions may draw on residual abilities even when cognitive impairment is present. The involvement of caregivers in art-viewing studies was deemed to be an important aspect, as art viewing formed a vehicle of relational communication within the dyad giving the caregiver new insights into the person with dementia’s abilities (Greenwood, Loewenthal, & Rose, 2002; Zeilig et al., 2014) and how dementia itself is conceptualized (Zeilig, 2014). As evidence suggests that the wellbeing of many people in caregiving roles may be adversely affected, it is highly pertinent to offer psychosocial support for caregivers as well as the people they care for (Department of Health, 2008).…”