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By Steven R. Sabat: Blackwell Publishers, Inc. 2001 (360 pages)
With clarity and detail, this book explores the way in which previously held and uninformed opinions can contribute to poor or even harmful treatment of the Alzheimer’s disease patient.
The book emphasizes the need for caregivers and professionals to realize that although such things as aphasia, hesitation and forgetful repetition are all symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, the patient must be accorded respect and understanding as an individual.
After a brief overview of the pathology of the disease, the thesis is developed through a comprehensive and very readable preface and first chapter. This introduces the concepts of Classical and Romantic Science, which are eminently applicable to Steven Sabat’s approach to research. In particular, Positioning Theory and the Aspects of Selfhood are enlighten the individual Alzheimer’s disease sufferer’s cognitive and social experiences and the quality of interactions between the afflicted and the healthy.
In the following chapters, however, we are led through detailed examples of conversation with Alzheimer’s disease patients; the reader is required to consider every word (and pause) exactly. This approach makes for slow and arduous reading; but this may be considered an advantage in that it reflects the reality of conversation with – and interpretation of – Alzheimer’s disease patients.
This well-written book is clearly an advance in its field and would be advantageous to caregivers, practitioners and students everywhere.
Reviewed by Rosemary Lear, Volunteer, Alzheimer Society of B.C.
