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Transforming the Quality of Life for People with Dementia through Contact with the Natural World
On sale
15th November 2011
Price: £18.99
This important book simply but persuasively demonstrates why we should provide the opportunities for people with dementia to experience the great outdoors. It also gives a voice to people with dementia who have felt the benefit of getting closer to nature. The contributors explore many different ways in which people with dementia can experience and interact with nature through pursuits such as farming, gardening and walking, and the book includes a chapter on the therapeutic, life-enhancing effects of activities with animals. The book includes descriptions of projects and initiatives from around the world that have revolutionised the everyday experience of people with dementia, and made a real difference to their quality of life. Illustrated with photographs amply demonstrating the power of nature to lift the spirits and enrich life, the book will be an inspiring guide for relatives, carers and professionals who want to help people with dementia lead a richer life, experience nature fully and enjoy its many accompanying benefits.
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Reviews
Providing a compelling case for both the need for therapeutic intervention, delivered through the medium of the great outdoors and the need to see the service user as a person first, this text is a timely reminder in these figure focussed times that as therapists we have more to offer than a focus simply on service users daily routines.
Many of us are fearful of dementia and its implications, and these fears are often translated into being overprotective. We can find ourselves de-skilling people who are already losing their abilities - all in the name of keeping them safe. This book challenges the assumptions underpinning this approach, with beautifully written essays from a range of contributors... Everyone involved in the care of individuals with dementia, or with their relatives, will benefit from reading this book. Many of the sections include good references for those who wish to study further ~This is not a textbook as such. Instead, it provides thoughtful inspiration and suggestions.
I found the book an inspiration in terms of current practice that incorporates the natural world into care and therapeutic treatment. By giving voice to first-person narratives of those experiencing dementia to articulate the benefits they experience through contact with the natural world in all its myriad form, as well as contributions from professionals and carers, the book weaves effortlessly between different narrative and perspectives remaining true to a holistic vision of care where the natural world is central.
Jane Gilliard and Mary Marshall are to be congratulated on plugging a real gap in the literature with this very readable book
a fascinating book with many good ideas from several countries. Care homes can be such stuffy and unnatural places, unhealthy for mind, body and spirit, but, increasingly, there are homes where the garden and livestock are an everyday, all-season, parts of the place, and essential to the culture of care. None of us can live well or fully without some "fresh air on our faces".
How can one accept that people with dementia are deprived of the so simple and yet essential pleasures of relating to Nature when the solutions are there, in this rich and inspiring book?