Talking the Talk but not Walking the Walk - Barriers to Person-Centred Care in Dementia

The concept of person-centred care has been around for over 20 years and attracted much interest and enthusiasm due to its humanistic approach to people with dementia. Aged care facilities however, continue to have difficulty implementing and maintaining person-centred practice. This book documents a research study in an aged care facility which tried to set up a person-centred program for their residents with dementia. Beginning with a discussion of the different perspectives on dementia and dementia care (biomedical, psycho-social, social constructionist), the author goes on to document the difficulties encountered by this facility. Various barriers to a person-centred approach are explored: institution-specific issues viewed within interpersonal, environmental, and organisational frameworks; procedural and policy issues; as well as barriers arising from differing value systems. It is this mutually influencing complex of issues which get in the way of treating people with dementia as people. This book should be of interest to staff and management within the aged care and dementia fields, as well as service providers and policy makers.