Understanding Dementia

Another Tesco charity bookshelf find, Understanding Dementia by Alan Jacques will allow you to do as much as that, as per 1988 on its release. Obviously, the field of psychology – and in particular geropsychology, relating to the elderly – moves along at breakneck speed. You can find reports on the latest findings being updated numerous times a day on sites like Psypost. 

A book this dated must be taken with a pinch of salt. Jacques describes those over 75 as ‘the old old,’ a bracket into which my Parkrunning, cycling, pilates student dad now falls. Knowledge of nutrition, exercise and sleep allow people my parents’ age to stay much healthier for much longer, so a lot of the age brackets mentioned now seem a little dated. 

It’s not just the science that’s out of date. The language is already blunt and wouldn’t pass today. Dementia patients are referred to as ‘sufferers,’ ‘demented’ and mentally handicapped.’ The phrase ‘commit suicide’ has also rightly been resigned to the verbal historical waste-basket since publication. 

The medical knowledge is also primitive and inaccurate. A table diagram includes, under ‘possible cause,’ the diagnosis ‘alcoholism.’ Fair enough, but the next column, titled ‘Treatment,’ has under it only ‘Stop drinking.’ Yeah, good luck with that. 

The book still contains some surprising factual relevance. For treatment of concentration, Jacques recommends video games, something that, contrary to popular belief, science still backs up today. To the book’s credit, The British Psychological Society agrees, as do several studies listed on Psypost. 

These interesting segments are tarred by a weirdly high number of minor typos scattered through the book. I counted 12. There’s no glossary and a handful of acronyms aren’t even explained. I had to Google ADS, which I ascertained was Alcohol Dependence Syndrome, and not Acquired Demyelinating Syndrome or Aerospace Defence Security. 

My interest in these books comes from 2 places. 1 is I have worked in a field that deals with the elderly and the support systems there for older people’s use. It’s always good to get a bit of extraneous knowledge. 2: I have an Acquire Brain Injury, memory difficulties and some low-level mental health issues for which I’ve sought treatment. I find the more I read up on psychology, the more I understand the world, and understand myself. 

I’m not sure I learned a great deal from this book, to be honest. Other than that if an individual has an underlying psychological condition to begin with, dementia could hit them particularly hard. I’m 42 in 4 months. The prognosis does not look good...