Latest News

How to help people with dementia retain the power of choice

Deterioration in the ability to produce complex speech or understand what people are asking, can make it difficult for people with dementia to make choices in conventional ways. It can be simple things like deciding which clothes to wear, or what to have for dinner. But when a person is in the more advanced stages of dementia, and may not be able to speak at all, it can be difficult for those caring for them to work out what their preferences would be.

To help the estimated 280,000 people with dementia who are living in UK care homes, family members are often asked what their loved ones would prefer and notes are made by staff. But we know that people’s preferences can change, sometimes on a daily basis, and are hard to predict even by people who know them really well.

This article by Rebecca Sharp, Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Zoe Lucock, PhD researcher at the School of Psychology is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Publication date: 15 November 2018