Living Longer Depression Free: A Family Guide toRecognizing, Treating, and Preventing Depressionin Later Life. Miller and Reynolds. John HopkinsUniversity Press, Baltimore, USA, 2003. Pages:320. £13.50.

Two American geriatric psychiatrists have pro-vided a useful guide to depression for sufferers andcarers. Opening with the recognition of depression,a GDS with scoring rules is helpfully included, allow-ing the reader to judge if they really need the rest ofthe book. The section on getting help for depressionemphasizes the need for proper evaluation, in viewof the complex nature of depression. The US patternof service delivery and mental health law on compul-sory treatment is covered, but the vast majority ofinformation has international relevance. There is use-ful advice on commonly used drugs, side effects andtime needed to respond. There is a sensible review ofherbal and homeopathic remedies, with a table of themain remedies, their side effects and interactionspointing out the need, especially for the elderly, for

medical advice. There is a full discussion of prevent-ing relapse, including, for example, by improvinghealth and social activity, exercise, daily routine,and spotting early warning signs of recurrence. Theauthors also offer a valuable and down-to-earthapproach to the usually taboo subject of planningend-of-life issues. A list of over 70 useful websitesprovides plenty of further information available todedicated internet users.

It is good to see a book that so comprehensivelyinforms sufferers and carers and at £13.50 it is goodvalue. It will be useful to those patients and carerswho expect more information and want to take partin decisions, although its length would obviouslynot be suitable for all.

SUSAN BEDFORD

Psychiatric Services for the ElderlyFulbourn Hospital, Cambridge, UK

Published online in Wiley InterScience(www.interscience.wiley.com).

DOI: 10.1002/gps.901

The Essential Dementia Care Handbook. Edited byGraham Stokes and Fiona Goudie. Speechmark,Oxford, 2002. Pages: 222. £22.45

This is the second ‘handbook’ of dementia care thatI have had the pleasure of reviewing recently. The firstbeing more modest in it’s titular aspirations, ‘A Hand-book of Dementia Care’ (Cantley, 2001). This secondhandbook explores the complex theoretical issues ofdementia care in some depth and by so doing high-lights both the strengths and weakness of the ‘Essen-tial’ handbook.

At their best (and it is very good) Stokes and Gou-die provide solid, practical advice around those areaswhich carers find most difficult, e.g. working withaggression, toiletting and wandering. I was particu-larly pleased to see support for the idea that peoplewith dementia can go out for a walk without beingaccused of that most terrible of things, wandering.Unsurprisingly, given the provenance of the book,the new orthodoxies of Person Centred Care andKitwoodian thinking are given an extensive workout.Surely the time has come to stop juxtaposing thismodel with the ‘medical’ model. It is important to

get the medicine right for people with dementia.The message that medicine alone will not do has beenheard and recognised. All this dichotomy serves to dois continue an artificial divide that potentiallydeprives the sufferer an avenue of care.

Whilst some (well alright, me) would argue for theabolition of the word confusion when talking aboutdementia the authors attempt to operationalise thedefinition. ‘Confusion is the reporting of informationor living of experience that represents a reality discor-dant to our own’. How this definition excludes mis-takes, misjudgement, ‘not knowing’ and psychoticphenomena as is claimed, I am not sure. Who ismore confused, George Bush or Saddam Hussein?Perhaps by the time this review is published theanswer will have become clear. This rather extremeexample raises the issues of power in relationshipswith the person with dementia inherent in such adefinition. This is at odds with much of the earlierrhetoric.

Essential? A grand claim but it depends what youwant. The book is very useful when talking of practi-cal interventions, clearly based on a wealth of care-fully considered clinical experience but does

Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry 2003; 18: 757–759.

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perhaps less well in presenting the thinking behind theinterventions to an audience that would also want the‘how to . . . ’ advice.

REFERENCE

Cantley C. 2001. A Handbook of Dementia Care. Open UniversityPress: Buckingham.

CHRIS BALL

Consultant Old Age PsychiatristCommunity Team B

South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, London, UKPublished online in Wiley InterScience

(www.interscience.wiley.com).DOI: 10.1002/gps.878

Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry 2003; 18: 757–759.

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