First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A practical approach for professionals working with people suffering from dementias, this book focuses on dementias, including Alzheimer's disease, from a multi-cultural perspective.

In recent years, the literature on the topic of ethnic and racial issues in Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias has increased dramatically. At the same time, the need for cultural competence in all of geriatric care, including dementia care, is increasingly being acknowledged. Researchers and providers are beginning to recognize the impending "ethnogeriatric imperative," as the number of elders from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds continues to rise. Ethnicity and the Dementias offers invaluable background information in this area, while also examining how those suffering from dementia and their family members respond or adapt to the challenges that follow. Thoroughly updated and revised from the first edition, the book features contributions from leading clinicians and researchers on the epidemiology of dementias by ethnic population, new information on the assessment of diverse populations, and updates and inclusions of new populations in the management of dementia and working with families. The book is ideal for practitioners, researchers, and policy makers in search of the most current ethnogeriatric findings.

Older Americans, even the oldest, can now expect to live years longer than those who reached the same ages even a few decades ago. Although survival has improved for all racial and ethnic groups, strong differences persist, both in life expectancy and in the causes of disability and death at older ages. This book examines trends in mortality rates and selected causes of disability (cardiovascular disease, dementia) for older people of different racial and ethnic groups. The determinants of these trends and differences are also investigated, including differences in access to health care and experiences in early life, diet, health behaviors, genetic background, social class, wealth and income. Groups often neglected in analyses of national data, such as the elderly Hispanic and Asian Americans of different origin and immigrant generations, are compared. The volume provides understanding of research bearing on the health status and survival of the fastest-growing segment of the American population.

With contributions from experienced dementia practitioners and care researchers, this book examines the impact of culture and ethnicity on the experience of dementia and on the provision of support and services, both in general terms and in relation to specific minority ethnic communities. Drawing together evidence-based research and expert practitioners' experiences, this book highlights the ways that dementia care services will need to develop in order to ensure that provision is culturally appropriate for an increasingly diverse older population. The book examines cultural issues in terms of assessment and engagement with people with dementia, challenges for care homes, and issues for supporting families from diverse ethnic backgrounds in relation to planning end of life care and bereavement. First-hand accounts of living with dementia from a range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds give unique perspectives into different attitudes to dementia and dementia care. The contributors also examine recent policy and strategy on dementia care and the implications for working with culture and ethnicity. This comprehensive and timely book is essential reading for dementia care practitioners, researchers and policy makers.

As the largest generation in U.S. history - the population born in the two decades immediately following World War II - enters the age of risk for cognitive impairment, growing numbers of people will experience dementia (including Alzheimer's disease and related dementias). By one estimate, nearly 14 million people in the United States will be living with dementia by 2060. Like other hardships, the experience of living with dementia can bring unexpected moments of intimacy, growth, and compassion, but these diseases also affect people's capacity to work and carry out other activities and alter their relationships with loved ones, friends, and coworkers. Those who live with and care for individuals experiencing these diseases face challenges that include physical and emotional stress, difficult changes and losses in their relationships with life partners, loss of income, and interrupted connections to other activities and friends. From a societal perspective, these diseases place substantial demands on communities and on the institutions and government entities that support people living with dementia and their families, including the health care system, the providers of direct care, and others. Nevertheless, research in the social and behavioral sciences points to possibilities for preventing or slowing the development of dementia and for substantially reducing its social and economic impacts. At the request of the National Institute on Aging of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Reducing the Impact of Dementia in America assesses the contributions of research in the social and behavioral sciences and identifies a research agenda for the coming decade. This report offers a blueprint for the next decade of behavioral and social science research to reduce the negative impact of dementia for America's diverse population. Reducing the Impact of Dementia in America calls for research that addresses the causes and solutions for disparities in both developing dementia and receiving adequate treatment and support. It calls for research that sets goals meaningful not just for scientists but for people living with dementia and those who support them as well. By 2030, an estimated 8.5 million Americans will have Alzheimer's disease and many more will have other forms of dementia. Through identifying priorities social and behavioral science research and recommending ways in which they can be pursued in a coordinated fashion, Reducing the Impact of Dementia in America will help produce research that improves the lives of all those affected by dementia.

Seeking to assist professionals and care providers looking to develop culturally-based techniques for the care of dementia-afflicted elders, this book first presents the need for culturally sensitive care, and then describes how this method of care may be utilized, developed, approved, and evaluated. The book includes numerous case studies, and highlights the authors' model.; Dealing with facets of intercultural practice, Part 1 of the text centres around the professional or provider already engaged or seeking to engage in day-to-day contact with ethnically diverse clientele. The emphasis is on highlighting those skills which serve the practitioner to establish intercultural rapport on their daily cross- ethnic assignments. The central tenet of this section is that the worker's attention has to be on maintaining both the dementia-affected elders' and the ethnic family members' cultural dignity.

As life expectancy increases in India, the number of people living with dementia will also rise. Yet little is known about how people in India cope with dementia, how relationships and identities change through illness and loss. In addressing this question, this book offers a rich ethnographic account of how middle-class families in urban India care for their relatives with dementia. From the husband who wakes up at 3 am to feed his wife ice-cream to the daughters who gave up employment for seven years to care for their mother with dementia, this book illuminates the local idioms on dementia and aging, the personal experience of care-giving, the functioning of stigma in daily life, and the social and cultural barriers in accessing support.

In recent years, the literature on the topic of ethnic and racial issues in Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias has increased dramatically. At the same time, the need for cultural competence in all of geriatric care, including dementia care, is increasingly being acknowledged. Researchers and providers are beginning to recognize the impending "ethnogeriatric imperative," as the number of elders from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds continues to rise. Ethnicity and the Dementias offers invaluable background information in this area, while also examining how those suffering from dementia and their family members respond or adapt to the challenges that follow. Thoroughly updated and revised from the first edition, the book features contributions from leading clinicians and researchers on the epidemiology of dementias by ethnic population, new information on the assessment of diverse populations, and updates and inclusions of new populations in the management of dementia and working with families. The book is ideal for practitioners, researchers, and policy makers in search of the most current ethnogeriatric findings.

Dementia is color-blind and affects the human race profoundly. Consequently, The Race of Dementia is in progress and runners need to be equipped. Join the author as she offers: education, empowerment, and encouragement. Breakaway and also experience laughter and brokenness accentuated with realism and gravitas. Let us run and finish this race together.