Our memory mediates our interaction with the world. It is one of the most fundamental human activities, but it is only when it fails us that we even think about it at all. Experiences are had, memories are made, memories are remembered and memories fade. This paper takes a close…
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Introduction: Persons with preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD) show impairments in semantic and associative memory years before the onset of clinical symptoms. However, many tasks used to assess these deficits make use of previously learned stimuli, often within well-establishe…
Most physiological processes follow predictable 24-hour patterns called circadian rhythms. Patients with dementia often have disrupted circadian rhythms which may be due to damage to the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus, the site of endogenous generation of rhythms. I…
This thesis explored caregiver responses to persons with dementia (PWD) in association with psychological outcomes in both caregivers and PWD, using a variety of methods, including a systematic review, a naturalistic study using the Expressed Emotion (EE) methodology with cross-…
There are competing models through which a dementia diagnosis can be understood, but what dominates the assessment process for dementia diagnosis is the medical model, which neglects the social, cultural, and political aspects of the diagnosis. In a Western society where value i…
This thesis argues for a profound shift in the way in which we understand dementia, advocating from a move away from the rhetoric of loss and decay, and towards an acknowledgement of people with dementia as whole and undiminished by the progress of their disease. It highlights t…
Dementia incidence is rising as our population is ageing. There is growing evidence for the protective effect of physical activity against cognitive decline. However, there are inconsistent results across studies despite the large number of high quality trials. The role of psych…
Background: Semantic dementia occurs as part of the frontotemporal dementia spectrum of conditions and presents with a progressive and striking receptive and expressive communication disorder. Studies thus far have generally concentrated on quantitative assessment of cognition a…
The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that new and varied views of dementia surface when the concept of intersectionality is applied to dementia research; and that these perspectives pose challenges to our assumptions about what it is like to have dementia. Grounded theory re…
This is a multi-method ethnographic study, grounded in symbolic interactionism and social constructionism, which seeks to explore the social worlds of people with dementia in institutional long-term care. Carried out over six months, it uses non-participant observation, Dementia…
The Bayesian network (BN) formalism is a powerful representation for encoding domains characterised by uncertainty. However, before it can be used it must first be constructed, which is a major challenge for any real-life problem. There are two broad approaches, namely the hand-…
A wealth of research has reported possible risk and predictive factors for dementia, the variance across populations and the possible reasons for this variance. This thesis attempts to describe demographic and modifiable risk factors for dementia, with the emphasis on the associ…
This comparative research explores the work experiences of dementia care workers in nursing homes. The aim of this study is to understand concepts central to care and to gain insights from the care workers‟ perspectives. A comparative framework and symbolic interactionist approa…
The objectives of this thesis were to explore the effects of receptive individualised live and recorded-music on interactions within participating dyads consisting of a person with dementia who was in their final phase of life (resident), and a person with whom he or she shared …
Dementia is an increasingly important problem in an aging society. Jewish and secular ethical theory and patient and caregiver narrative influence considerations of an appropriate response to the biomedical issues involving dementia. Dementia is a disease of dissolution and crea…
Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is a dementia syndrome characterized by a gradual impairment of language functioning while other cognitive domains remain intact for at least two years following symptom onset. Given that PPA patients suffer progressive interference with communi…
The objective of this study was to develop and validate the Test of Senegal, a dementia screening tool with items on orientation, memory, attention, language and executive function/praxis for a total score of 0-39. It was applied to Senegalese elderly patients aged 55 years and …
Objective: Cardiovascular risks (CVR) such as hypertension and hyperlipidemia play a critical role in the emergence of dementia syndromes. Medication to treat CVR may not obviate downstream risk for cognitive change.