Practical Dementia Care
Abstract
Key Words: Books Reviewed The authors, experts in the field of geriatric psychiatry and dementia, offer a clinical treatise on dementia that is good reading for any clinician dealing with the geriatric population. There are several chapters on cortical dementias, including epidemiology, genetics, and pathology. The topics of frontal lobe dementia (frontal lobe, thalamostriatal, and motor neuron), dementia due to Lewy Body disease, and prion dementias are well discussed. Subcortical dementias due to Parkinson's, progressive supranuclear palsy, and HIV infection are intelligently dealt with. Stroke-related, toxic, and brain injuryrelated cognitive difficulties are addressed as well. The book is sprinkled throughout with practical clinical pearls, such as the four A's of cortical dementia (amnesia, apraxia, agnosia, aphasia) versus the four D's of subcortical dementia (dysmnesia, dysexecutive, delay, depletion). Discussions on approaching the patient and family give the reader the feel of accompanying the authors on bedside rounds. These sections address complex issues such as guilt and anger. The niceties involved in approaching and discussing a diagnosis of dementia with the family resonated with the experiences of this reviewer. The reader is educated about the use of rhythm, intonation, prosody, and gestures in communicating with demented, possibly aphasic, patients. Noncognitive