A new Alzheimer’s Society survey looked at care for people with dementia on hospital wards: a massive 77% of carers were dissatisfied with the weay that their relatives with dementia were cared for in hospitals wards. Would it be any better in hospices? You would hope so, at least partly because staffing is better. But most older people do not come into hospices for their dementia, but for other conditions, so nurses and other staff may be as clueless as their colleagues in hospitals about caring appropriately for people with dementia.

Lakey, L (2009) Counting the cost: Caring for people with dementia on hospital wards. London: Alzheimer’s Society.

Note that many of the official websites focus on social care, not on healthcare; yes, there are healthcare treatments to be done, but most of the issues are about how people live with dementia.

The main BBC report on the study has an interview with Angela Rippon, the former tv newsreader, about her mother as well as a good summary of the main facts:

On the web: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8359836.stm

The BBC learning site has an ace video case study of a woman with early stage Alzheimer’s and her husband. Although her family resources are such that many of the problems health and social care people see are mitigated, it does show people working on coping.

BBC Headroom info: http://www.bbc.co.uk/headroom/wellbeing/guides/alzheimers_and_dementia.shtml

There are also lots of  good Alzheimer’s society fact sheets: http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents.php?categoryID=200137

On a positive note, there’s a lot of useful practical and professional information on the SCIE dementia gateway website:http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/dementia/index.asp

You may also want to look at the Department of Health National Dementia Strategy website: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/SocialCare/Deliveringadultsocialcare/Olderpeople/NationalDementiaStrategy/index.htm