One Day At a Time: How Families Manage the Experience of Dementia

One Day at a Time is potentially a landmark text in understanding care provision needs of families in a changing social context. Its applied and holistic orientation reflects an exceptional level of experiential insight and of scholarship that should ensure both relevance and widespread appeal. This book not only provides readers with a practical theoretical framework, but also incorporates applications that are imaginative, and yet simple to implement. (From the Foreword by Dr. Otto von Mering and Dr. Leon Earle) Dementia attacks not only the body, but in particular the mind and the very personhood of the patient. For family members, the alteration in the person's identity and the loss of a shared past and shared memories is devasting. The purpose of this book is to show how families go about day-to-day living with this condition. Le Navenec and Vonhof provide a holistic view of caring as a reciprocal relationship that involves all members of the family as well as their surrounding social network. The book is intended primarily for professionals, educators, and students in the fields of geriatrics, nursing, rehabilitation, social work, gerontology, family sociology, medical anthropology, and family therapy. Family members who are caring for an older person may also benefit from reading about the experiences of others.… (more)