アルツハイマー病（AD）は、67秒に一人の割合で発症していると推定され、患者が急増しています。
本書は、多くの人の人生に影響を及ぼすにもかかわらず、充分な理解が進んでいないADと認知症について一般に欠けている知識や情報を提供します。これらの病気の原因や症状について徹底的に調査し、膨大な研究データを基に、ADの遺伝的・生物学的側面や、臨床の歩みをひもときます。特に患者側の主観的な体験を明らかにし、認知症とADという2つの異なる病態にまつわる用語を明確にすることで、記憶機能障害に対する理解を妨げる、危険な誤解を解きほぐします。
認知症でも、意識、思考能力、自我は保たれています。長年ADと診断された人々の視点や経験の調査・観察に従事してきた著者は、患者に対し敬意と共感を持って接する大切さを解き、患者本人が使いたい言葉を見つけることが非常に困難な状況にあっても、コミュニケーションを容易にする方法があることも明らかにしています。こうした有益な情報が詰まった本書は、傍でサポートやケアを提供する方のQOL（生活の質）向上にも役立つでしょう。
   

• Explores all key topics related to Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia in an accessible, question-and-answer format
• Identifies strengths of people with AD in the areas of: thinking, emotion, memory, selfhood, creativity, spirituality, and social cognition/awareness
• Helps caregivers to identify how these strengths manifest themselves, and work with people diagnosed with AD
• Explores how people diagnosed experience their diagnosis, sense of self, and their social world, providing true-to-life examples in their own words
• Helps caregivers to avoid dysfunctional treatment and to avoid unwittingly interpreting normal actions as pathological

       
Alzheimer's is swiftly on the rise: it is estimated that every 67 seconds, someone develops the disease. For many, the words 'Alzheimer's disease' or 'dementia' immediately denote severe mental loss and, perhaps, madness. Indeed, the vast majority of media coverage of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other types of dementia focuses primarily on the losses experienced by people diagnosed and the terrible burden felt by care partners yearning for a "magic bullet" drug cure.
    
Providing an accessible, question-and-answer-format primer on what touches so many lives, and yet so few of us understand, Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia: What Everyone Needs to Know® contributes what is urgently missing from public knowledge: unsparing investigation of their causes and manifestations, and focus on the strengths possessed by people diagnosed. Steven R. Sabat mines a large body of research to convey the genetic and biological aspects of Alzheimer's disease, its clinical history, and, most significantly, to reveal the subjective experience of those with Alzheimer's or dementia. By clarifying the terms surrounding dementia and Alzheimer's, which are two distinct conditions, Sabat corrects dangerous misconceptions that plague our understanding of memory dysfunction. People diagnosed with AD retain awareness, thinking ability, and sense of self; crucially, Sabat demonstrates that there are ways to facilitate communication even when the person with AD has great difficulty finding the words he or she wants to use. From years spent exploring and observing the points of view and experiences of people diagnosed, Sabat strives to inform as well as to remind readers of the respect and empathy owed to those diagnosed and living with dementia. 
   
Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia conveys this type of information and more, which, when applied by family and professional caregivers, will help improve the quality of life of those diagnosed as well as of those who provide support and care.