Barbara Bridges is a Registered Nurse with in-home caregiving experience for two parents with dementing illness. In Therapeutic Caregiving she has written a practical guide for anyone who has assumed responsibility for the care and management of someone with Alzheimer's or other dementia causing disease or injury. Bridges combines her extensive professional expertise with practical, step-by-step practical advice. Encompassing compassion for the person with dementing illness, Therapeutic Caregiving presents specific techniques for keeping persons with dementia more functional, both mentally and physically. Therapeutic Caregiving is expressly written for family members and employed in-home caregivers, but it is also ideal for the staff of adult family homes and home health agency workers. Therapeutic Caregiving provides suggestions for that long term care professionals in group home and nursing home environments as well. Important information is provided on the "art of cueing" to promote independence in performing normal activities and logical thinking processes or memory stimulation, promoting mental and intellectual functioning, the use of structuring and scheduling, prevention of unnecessary anxiety and stress, management of problem behaviors, managing confusion and/or disorientation, managing depression, and providing a climate for independent functioning and a sense of well-being. Especially useful are the appendices which feature additional reading lists, video tape resources, dementia information and support groups, a sample daily schedule, a sample oral hygiene cueing regimen, a sample cueing regimen for getting out of a chair or off a toilet seat, an introduction to exercise segments (General Information, Exercise Frequency, Appropriate Clothing, The Importance of Counting), warm-up and balance exercises, range of motion exercises, stretching and cool-down exercises, aerobic exercises, and toning exercises. Therapeutic Caregiving is one of the clearest, best written, well organization "how-to" books on Azheimer's care-giving now available to the non-specialist general reader as well as the professional health worker. -- Midwest Book Review
