Reinhard Guss is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Clinical Neuropsychologist; Dementia Workstream Lead, Member of the Faculty of the Psychology of Older People, BPS and Deputy Chair, Memory Services National Accreditation Programme. He will be speaking at the upcoming BGS Spring Meeting in Nottingham.
Clinical Psychologists have been part of Memory Clinics as long as they have been in existence as a part of service provision in the UK, using neuropsychology skills in the diagnostic process and in the development of coping strategies and employing clinical and psychotherapeutic skills in assisting with adjustment to a dementia diagnosis and in the support of families and carers. An overview of the Psychology position on dementia can be found in the recent paper to the British Psychological Society’s Dementia Advisory Group.
Historically, the diagnosis of dementia was often the domain of Neurologists and Psychiatrist, particularly when this affected younger people, while Geriatricians would have encountered dementia in older people, and may or may not have seen a need to diagnose it in socio-historic context where dementia was seen as untreatable and often a part of ageing that was to be expected. Continue reading
British Geriatrics Society 