Forget Memory: Creating Better Lives for People with Dementia

Memory loss can be one of the most terrifying aspects of a diagnosis of dementia. Yet the fear and dread of losing our memory make the experience of the disease worse than it needs to be, according to cultural critic and playwright Anne Davis Basting. She says, Forget memory. Basting emphasizes the importance of activities that focus on the present to improve the lives of persons with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. Based on ten years of practice and research in the field, Basting's study includes specific examples of innovative programs that stimulate growth, humor, and emotional connection; translates into accessible language a wide range of provocative academic works on memory; and addresses how advances in medical research and clinical practice are already pushing radical changes in care for persons with dementia. Bold, optimistic, and innovative, Basting's cultural critique of dementia care offers a vision for how we can change the way we think about and care for people with memory loss.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction: Dementia Is Hard, but It Needn't Be This Hard Part One: Understanding Our Fears about Dementia 1. What Is (and Isn't) Memory? How a Better Understanding of Memory Might Ease Our Fears about Its Loss 2. The Danger of Stories: How Stereotypes and the Stigma of Aging and Dementia Can Hurt Us Part Two: The Stories We Tell About Dementia in Popular Culture 3. Memory Loss in the Mainstream: Tightly Told Tragedies of Dementia with Science as Hero 4. Tightly Told Tragedies of Dementia: Then versus Now 5. Not So Tightly Tragic: Stories That Imagine Something More 6. Not Tragic at All: Stories about Memory Loss without the Old 7. All of the Above: Denny Crane as the Clown of Dementia Part Three: Moving Through Fear: Stories about Dementia that Inspire Hope 8. StoryCorps and the Memory Loss Initiative 9. Memory Bridge 10. To Whom I May Concern 11. TimeSlips Creative Storytelling Project 12. Songwriting Works 13. Dance: "Respect" and "Sea of Heartbreak" 14. The Visual Arts 15. Duplex Planet: The Art of Conversation 16. The Photography of Wing Young Huie 17. Autobiographies by People with Dementia Conclusion: How and Why to Move through Our Fears about Dementia Appendixes A. Program Description and Contact Information B. Recipes from Chapter 1 C. Images and Stories of Dementia D. Timeline of Stories and Events in the Recent History of Dementia Notes Index

About the Author :
Anne Davis Basting is the director of the Center on Age and Community at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, where she is also an associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the Peck School of the Arts. Her published works include The Stages of Age and The Arts and Dementia Care: A Resource Guide.

Review :
The further I read the more impressed I became with Ann Basting's book. Northeast Forum on Spirituality and Aging An outstanding survey for both health and general collections. Midwest Book Review Challenges conceptions of what is possible with memory loss... of special importance in Basting's book are the several chapters dedicated to programs that awaken imagination and explor what is possible for people with dementia. -- Kate de Medeiros, PhD Gerontologist Although Forget Memory may at first sight appear to be just another handbook for dementia carers, it defies the usual expectations of this recent literary category. By effectively showing how people with dementia can be stakeholders of their own well-being, Basting both raises the hope of restoring the dignity of this population, and provides caretakers with invaluable guidance of how to creatively improve their efforts... an innovative guidebook for dementia care, and for the understanding of dementia and people with dementia... In some sense Forget Memory is a manifesto for a revolution. -- Bjorn Moller Dementia This book challenges the dreaded stigma attached to dementia by advocating news ways of thinking, and illustrates this with successful projects across the U.S.A. -- Cathy Goodwin International Psychogeriatrics I believe this book is incredibly powerful and valuable... The suggested future movements are very important and realistic, which I believe are imperative to the advancement of care for anyone involved in, or influenced by dementia. -- Amy Jenkins Journal of Dementia and Mental Health