ABSTRACT
This chapter presents three themes that are of particular interest to Alzheimer’s researchers: problems and interventions for community residing patients; problems and interventions in the nursing home; and the assessment of Alzheimer’s patients' abilities to communicate medical consent and advance directives. It shows that the breadth of pertinent issues. Dementia patients with a wide range of cognitive deficits have been shown to increase the informativeness and accuracy and to decrease the ambiguity and repetitiveness of their conversations. A Traditional Reading group phase follows baseline assessment and examines the effects of a traditional reading group activity. Observations conducted during the group activity provide data on the frequency and duration of social interactions among residents and between staff and residents. Verbal communication and social interaction is no less important for individuals with declining cognitive abilities. Alzheimer’s disease patients also represent a useful population for studying pathological cognitive changes which mediate loss of consent capacity.
