Dementia Care Mapping Applications Across Cultures Edited by Anthea Innes, Ph.D. Foreword by Anna Ortigara, R.N., M.S.

Excerpted from the Foreword by Anna Ortigara for Dementia Care Mapping: Applications Across Cultures, edited by Anthea Innes, Ph.D.

Copyright ©  2003 by Health Professions Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Foreword
By Anna Ortigara

Since the late 1970s, it has been increasingly recognized that people with dementia are experiencing a disease process (often Alzheimer’s disease) and not "normal aging." With this recognition has come the growth of the dementia care field. Care worker practice and health care research have yielded a wealth of knowledge and approaches that can support the personhood of individuals with dementia. Yet, research and best care practices are just starting to be visible in the real-world settings where people with dementia live and receive care.

Enter Dementia Care Mapping (DCM). The work of Kitwood and Bredin had its inception in the late 1980s and shifted the discussion about the goals of specialized dementia care. DCM is one of the first methods to focus on the outcomes of dementia care. DCM does for dementia care what outcomes measurement has done for much of health care and social services. It asks a few fundamental questions: What are good outcomes of dementia care? If the needs of a person with dementia are being met, what does that look like? Can it be measured? Can that measurement be used to evaluate current care and to individualize care plans to support the person’s well-being?

DCM has great appeal to those who care deeply about people with dementia. The method has generated feelings of “at last!” to those of us who want so desperately for dementia care to do justice for those who have dementia. Dementia Care Mapping: Applications Across Cultures explores the early DCM work that has been conducted across care settings and across several cultures. The time for this discussion is now, and this book explores the early successes of DCM as well as its limitations.

Ultimately, Dementia Care Mapping: Applications Across Cultures reviews DCM and its current place in the field of dementia care and outcomes measurement. It raises as many questions as answers about the effectiveness and usability of DCM as a person-centered evaluator of dementia care. Nonetheless, these discussions are well begun, as DCM’s place within the field of dementia care is being explored and debated.

Anna Ortigara, R.N., M.S., is Vice President of Program Development, Life Services Network, Hinsdale, Illinois.