Baycrest doctor writes guidebook for families and healthcare providers
Toronto, Ontario, Nov. 11, 2011 -- One of Canada's best-known geriatricians has published a practical guidebook to help families and healthcare professionals provide the most comforting care possible to ailing seniors in the late stages of dementia when the person's prognosis for life is very limited.
Dr. Michael Gordon, a medical professor, ethicist and medical director of the Palliative Care Unit at the world-renowned Baycrest in Toronto, has helped many families and healthcare colleagues for over 30 years make the best care decisions for a patient with late-stage dementia.
"Late-stage dementia is not unlike terminal cancer with its stages of progressive deterioration, but family members have difficulty accepting the final stage of dementia in loved ones," says Dr. Gordon, who is the author of several books, including Parenting Your Parents: Support Strategies for Meeting the Challenge of Aging in the Family (2002 and 2005), and Moments that Matter: Cases in Ethical Eldercare (2010).
"There seems to be more denial and disbelief about what is happening, or there may be strong cultural and religious obligations to maintain life at all costs. This can complicate matters when it comes to making the best care decisions for a dying loved one and lead to tensions between the patient's family and the medical care team."
With dementia rates projected to soar in coming decades with an aging population, the book will hit close to home for a lot of people who have elderly family members in various stages of cognitive decline. "It is imperative," writes Dr. Gordon in the introduction to his book, "that age-related illness and end-of-life care are more openly discussed and understood among healthcare professionals and in the public forum."
The first section of the book is written for family members as well as health care providers to help them understand what end-stage dementia looks like, what palliative care is, and walk them through medical concepts such as pain and symptom management, when to withhold or stop life-sustaining treatments, and also examine the role of substitute decision-makers. This section is made all the more compelling with composite and fictionalized case descriptions of real-life drama playing out at bedside as family members wrestle with making the right care decisions for their loved ones.
The latter section of the book contains more medical concepts and terminology and is aimed at instructing healthcare providers and interested family members in assessing and managing end-stage symptoms in the patient, and ensuring the most comfortable and compassionate care possible.
Dr. Gordon developed the content for the book with the assistance of project manager Natalie Baker and the support of Dr. Daphna Grossman (Palliative Care Program at Baycrest), Dr. Marcia Sokolowski (a fellow ethicist at Baycrest), colleagues at the Alzheimer Society of Canada, and a host of experts in healthcare and academics in Canada and the United States. Development of the book was supported by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care's Innovation Fund.
The book is available through Chapters/Indigo and Amazon.ca and the U.S. outlets of Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble in soft cover and hard cover as well as directly from the publisher iUniverse where it can be purchased as an e-book – bookstore.iuniverse.com. The book is also available to order online at Baycrest – www.baycrest.org/publications. For further information on all of Dr. Gordon's books, visit his website – www.drmichaelgordon.com.
About Baycrest
Baycrest is a global leader in developing and providing innovations in aging and brain health. Headquartered on a 22-acre campus in Toronto and fully affiliated with the University of Toronto, Baycrest provides care to more than 2,500 frail and active seniors every day in outpatient and inpatient programs and residential settings. Baycrest's Centre for Memory and Neurotherapeutics offers clinical and educational programs for memory, dementia and related disorders.
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For more information on this press release or to interview author Dr. Michael Gordon, please contact: Kelly Connelly
Senior Media Officer
Baycrest
416-785-2432
kconnelly@baycrest.org
3 comments:
Late-stage dementia is not unlike terminal cancer with its stages of progressive deterioration, but family members have difficulty accepting the final stage of dementia in loved ones - This is true. It is difficult for family members to accept dementia because of its symptoms. Unlike cancer, wherein the patient lies sick in his / her bed; patients with dementia can walk and talk normally but can get hostile with people they forget.
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I agree with you completely. Family members have difficulty accepting the final stage of dementia in loved ones. I think this book is really helpful for the family of a person who suffers from dementia.
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