Book: Emotional Well-Being for the Person with Dementia

All humans have fundamental and universal needs throughout their life perhaps most significantly during times of crisis and vulnerability. Many researchers have looked at ‘peoples needs’ in the context of dementia.

Professor Tom Kitwood (1997) emphasised the importance of a person’s with dementia needs and promoted person-centred dementia care. He said that considering people with dementia in purely medical terms takes away their identity. People are more than an illness; they are living a life, a life that has a story, a life within relationships. Kitwood called this ‘the recognition of personhood’.

We saw that Maslow was an original thinker and identified his Hierarchy of Needs for all people. Kitwood, specifically focussed on the person with dementia, identified six psychological needs. He didn’t propose them as a hierarchy but rather as a circle or a continuum. 

We will look at these needs in the context of End of Life Care using a Palliative Care approach with a person centred care framework (terms discussed earlier in the course in Book: Introduction).