Adaptive Interaction and Dementia

Practical interventions for communicating with people in the advanced stages of dementia who are no longer able to speak

Effective communication with people with dementia is imperative to good relationships with professional caregivers and family members. This book offers a person-centred approach to assessing the communication skills of people with dementia who are unable to speak, and presents evidence-based methods for effective non-verbal communication.

This guide to Adaptive Interaction explains how to assess the communication repertoires of people with dementia who can no longer speak, and offers practical interventions for those who wish to interact with them.

Outlining the challenges faced by people living with advanced dementia, this book shows how to relieve the strain on relationships between them, their families, and professional caregivers through better, person-centred communication. It includes communication assessment tools and guidance on how to build on the communication repertoire of the individual with dementia using nonverbal means including imitation, facial expressions, sounds, movement, eye gaze and touch. With accessible evidence and case studies based on the authors' research, Adaptive Interaction can be used as the basis for developing interactions without words with people living with dementia.