ABSTRACT
This chapter provides suggestions for quality of life (QoL) measurement, and discusses issues around pain management, advance care planning, and end of life issues. The ultimate objective in providing person-centered care to persons with dementia is to enhance or maintain their desired QoL in the face of medical conditions that limit communicative, cognitive, and social functioning. R. T. Woods et al. found factors that were important in QoL, including: irritability and self-concept of the person with dementia; quality of the relationship between care recipient and care provider; and male gender. QoL measures are either generic instruments that can be used with people with any health condition, or disease specific. Communication disorders are a reality of dementia, so it is important to assess how communication difficulties may affect the resident's QoL. Pain is an important component of health-related QoL. Transcripts of the experimental sessions were analyzed for quality of the verbal statements made to demonstrate decisional capacity.
