A New Approach to Dementia: Examining Sensory and Attention Impairment

A New Approach to Dementia: Examining Sensory and Perceptual Impairment is a groundbreaking work which highlights the non-memory impairments of the dementias to improve both early recognition of dementia and clinical diagnosis, as well as interventions and care. It focuses clinical attention on the significant evidence supporting the existence of many types of sensory and perception-related changes/abnormalities sometimes at the early stages of the disease and throughout its progression.

Providing a holistic overview of the field, the book includes self-reports of people with dementia and caregivers, alongside an in-depth discussion of the application of the findings about non-memory impairments to clinical care and management. It leads a movement to address the over-focus on memory function in dementia and ageing, arguing for the need to test sensory and perceptual abnormalities to improve clinical practice and research into, and the care and support of, people living with dementia and associated disorders.

With its mix of scientific, and clinical and real-life relevance, this book is essential for clinicians and researchers specialising in ageing and dementia as well as carers working with people living with dementia and students of neuropsychology/neurocognition, medicine and health and social care.

Professor Andrea Tales holds a Personal Chair in Neuropsychology and Dementia Research at Swansea University and is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.

Professor Jan Kremláček, Head of Medical Biophysics LFHK at Charles University and the Czech Society for Clinical Neurophysiology vice-president, has been working on assessing neural activity connected with visual perception.

Dr Emma Richards is a Chartered member of the British Psychological Society, with an interest in Vascular related dementias, early diagnosis and links with hearing loss. She works within Public Health Wales and has an honorary research position at Swansea University.