Helping People with Progressive Memory Disorders: A guide for you and your family

A review of "Helping People with Progressive Memory Disorders: A guide for you and your family"

Retrieved from http://alzonline.phhp.ufl.edu/en/reading/memory/

This website offers useful information, written in easily understood language, for family members and friends for persons with progressive memory loss. Beginning with a brief overview of the etiology of many types of progressive memory disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, this site provides tips on a wide variety of issues. Beginning with a segment on how to prepare for a physician's visit to begin the journey to diagnosis of the memory disorder, a process that can be difficult for family members to undertake, the site then leads the reader through different types of problems that co-occur with memory loss. Additional information on ways to aid memory in all persons, not just in persons with a diagnosis of memory loss, is provided. I particularly liked the segment on dealing with challenging behaviors, as I believe the information offered is relevant and is based on sound nursing care, including the importance of environmental management as an effective strategy for improving behavior in persons with memory loss. The website concludes with a segment on issues and feelings of family caregivers, which provide a description of the types of services that are typically available in communities, and the importance of managing stress and caring for yourself if you are a family caregiver. Overall, I found this site to be informative for family members, friends, clergy, and others who have contact with persons with memory loss. Although this site is not specifically targeted to the needs of younger children (i.e. grandchildren), the information that is presented in the site will aid adult readers in ways to communicate the changes that are manifested in persons with progressive memory loss to persons of young age.