Book Description

As communication skills decline in people with dementia, a supportive environment becomes crucial to a resident's abilities to express needs and desires. The ECAT is the evidence-based toolkit to help you recognize what physical and social changes will help improve functioning, communication, and quality of life. Here are the tools to assess, intervene, and modify - on an individualized basis - to ensure the quality of life for people with dementia. In three easy-to-follow steps, the ECAT Assessment Forms help you: assess activity performance with quick yes/no questions; evaluate the environment to identify barriers and problems; and pinpoint individualized recommendations for intervention. The ECAT is not only person-centered, but also real-world. ECAT's developers are both researchers and experienced clinicians who have made sure the ECAT integrates effortlessly into evaluation and treatment sessions; helps keep up caseload demands with creative solutions; satisfies regulatory requirements; leads to straightforward functional therapeutic interventions; and identifies low-cost, person-centered environmental modifications. In field-tests, 97% if professionals using ECAT reported it gave them new treatment options to use with clients with dementia. Discover for yourself the surprisingly simple environmental changes that can improve functional independence by increasing the size of sign lettering to identify spaces, using colored tape around a door handle, and encouraging social interactions by rearranging seating areas. ECAT for Dementia Care has more than 300 specific recommendations for interventions and modifications that reduce typical problems encountered during routine activities of daily living for people with dementia. With the ECAT's functionally ba