This book sets out to ‘provide practical guidance for the social work professional working with Black and Latino families living with the daily challenges of Alzheimer Disease and other dementia, based on sound theoretical framework, and based on the clinical and research experiences of the authors’. This is an ambitious objective and one that merits consideration of whether it is achieved. In short, it is. But let us explore a little further the perspective of this book, its strengths and limitations, and in what ways it can indeed support practitioners in their work.
The theoretical framework underpinning the approach advocated in this book is two-fold:
1. Systems theory – drawing on ideas about the resource system, the concept of wholeness and the concept of a symbiotic model of systematic care.
2. Cognitive behavioural therapy.
The book is written with social workers in mind and promotes a model of practice that is family focused and in which practitioners have a heightened awareness of some key concerns when working with people living with dementia. These concerns include: the value of trust in self and others; a concern for personal dignity; a person-orientated approach; the influence of a sense of shame and a strong pride (being particularly strong, the authors emphasise, for Black and Latino families); and beliefs around fatalism and the consequent belief that current action will not influence outcomes.
Whilst these theoretical and practice concepts will be globally recognised as underpinning good dementia care, some aspects of the book transfer less well outside the United States of America (USA). There is a lot of demographic information provided and, in a later section, information about health and social care funding – in itself very interesting and well presented, but drawing very heavily on material from the USA. Much of the language used may also be jarring to those outside the USA – non-affirmative language is used such as ‘dementia-afflicted’ which is unfortunate. I would urge the reader to read-through language such as this as the concepts being shared with us in the book are person centred and helpful to our understanding of dementia care, especially in minority groups where so little is written.
The book highlights very well some of the complexities for Black and Latino families living with dementia. These are discussed as being associated with migration, language, socio-economic disadvantage, relatively poor education and relatively poor health literacy. The book goes on to explore the challenges for services, highlighting the very limited access to assessment tools in languages other than English. There are some very helpful practice suggestions for practitioners, including the use of ethnocultural genograms, ethnocultural ecomaps and the use of folk remedies. There is considerable discussion in the book, including providing practice examples, of the Ethnic Theoretical Perspective Concept map (which includes cognitive behavioural, problem-solving and self-efficacy processes). This does, however, rather assume that the practitioner is working with a family carer rather than the person with dementia themselves.
Overall, this is a very valuable book, addressing a key sector of our population that receives little attention in the literature and yet which has some distinct issues in relation to dementia care. The book is well written, each chapter fronted with a case example for example, and is grounded theoretically and in research but is none-the-less accessible to a wide readership.
