Dementia Handbook & Resource Guide

Grey House offers a basic guide to dementia, starting with several reports that offer fascinating facts, figures, problem analysis, and overviews of ways various countries handle dementia; “World Alzheimer’s Report 2019: Attitudes to Dementia” (Alzheimer’s Disease International), which includes case studies, is especially useful. The remaining chapters, ranging in length from one page (neurosyphilis) to 30 (aging), succinctly summarize different types of dementias, from the well known (those due to aging, brain tumors, chronic substance abuse, traumatic brain injury) to the less familiar (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease). Written for the layperson, each chapter opens with a single page of general information (disease description, prevalence), followed by disease-specific resource lists of national and state associations, libraries, foundations and research centers, support groups and hotlines, magazines, and websites. Four appendixes include a mediagraphy (film, fiction, television, music), a glossary, an entry index, and a geographic index. Colorful and informative graphics succinctly impart information. The majority of similar titles focus on coping with dementia in general or Alzheimer’s disease in particular, making this more broad look immensely useful.