The Alzheimer's Disease Bookstore

Holding On to Home 

Designing Environments for People with Dementia

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

Publisher's Description:

Alzheimer's Disease currently affects more than 2.5 million people in the United States. Although there is still no cure, much can be done to improve the patient's quality of life through environmental design. In this important and pioneering book, Uriel Cohen and Gerald D. Weisman set forth a program of practical design principles linked to specific therapeutic goals.

Cohen and Weisman begin by offering simulated scenarios from the lives of Alzheimer's victims, highlighting those aspects of dementia that have implications for planning and design. They then address policy and planning decisions, analyzing selected building codes and other standards. They identify key requirements for design, including general attributes of the environment, overall building organization, and specific activity areas. And they present a set of prototypical designs for both private homes and institutions - including new and nontraditional settings. A concluding section offers criteria for evaluating existing or proposed facilities. Detailed architectural plans and drawings illustrate the options presented.

People with dementia live in environments ranging from their own homes to community - based group homes and long - term care facilities. Holding On to Home addresses the most important issues for the planning and modification of all of these settings. The book is equally useful to caregivers, nursing home and adult day care planners and administrators, architects and interior designers, as well as students and practitioners of geriatrics and gerontology.

Uriel Cohen and Gerald D. Weisman are co-directors of the Environments for People with Dementia Project and members of the faculty at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. The authors are recipients of a Research Citation from Progressive Architecture magazine, and the Design Educator Research Award from the National Symposium on Health Care Interior Design. Uriel Cohen is the coauthor of Contemporary Environments for People with Dementia (also available from Johns Hopkins).

You can now order the book listed below directly on the Internet from Lake Solitude Media's Alzheimer's Bookstore in affiliation with Amazon.com Books. Click on the link below.