Low Expectations – Attitudes on choice, care and community for people with dementia in care homes

Jane Buswell is Chair of the BGS Specialist Nurse and Senior Practitioners Group

A report by the Alzheimer’s Society, with foreword provided by the actor, Kevin Whately, indicates that along with the usual examples of both good and bad care being delivered around the country, expectations are worryingly low among people in care homes and their relatives, as well as the staff working in the care homes.

With 80 per cent of residents living in care homes having either dementia or significant memory problems, says the Alzheimer’ Society, providing good care for these people should be the primary focus of the care home sector. More needs to be done to raise expectations about the quality of life for people with dementia in care homes because lower expectations will always be self-fulfilling.

May issue of Age and Ageing out now

The May 2013 issue of Age and Ageing, the journal of the British Geriatrics Society is out now.

A full table of contents is available here, with editorials, research papers, reviews, short reports, case reports book reviews and more. Hot topics this issue include:

• Pathogenesis and management of osteoarthritis
• Risk factors for abuse in older people
• The cost of stroke in Ireland
• Preventing iatrogenic illness
• Quality of life with advancing age

The Editor’s View article can be read here.

This issue’s free and open access paper are:

• Elder abuse: a systematic review of risk factors in community-dwelling elders
• Which part of the Quick mild cognitive impairment screen (Qmci) discriminates between normal cognition, mild cognitive impairment and dementia?
• Cardiovascular risk factors and cognitive decline in adults aged 50 and over: a population-based cohort study
• The transition to living alone and psychological distress in later life
• Prevalence of sarcopenia in community-dwelling older people in the UK using the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP) definition: findings from the Hertfordshire Cohort Study (HCS).