Understanding Existential Health for Dementia Care

Understanding Existential Health for Dementia Care is a groundbreaking book that describes how existential health can enrich and expand bio-psycho-social approaches to dementia care, recognizing that well-being extends beyond physical, neurological, and cognitive symptoms. This book equips professionals, clinicians, and caregivers to integrate existential dimensions into person-centered care, emphasizing the role of meaning in life and emotional connection for dealing with illness and suffering.

Beginning with an introduction to the concept of existential health, the book connects this to an overall understanding of health related to dementia care. Core themes include the coincidence of suffering and meaning, fear of dementia, challenges to personhood, and multicultural perspectives. The book then provides an overview of how existential health can enhance person-centered care, addressing different types of dementia, neurological changes, emotional factors, and daily life functioning.The final section provides examples of existential support, including tools for meaningful conversations and existential exploration. The last chapter weaves together the book’s thematic threads, highlighting how past experiences contribute to present sense of meaning, identity, and connectedness in people with dementia.

It is valuable reading for professionals in dementia care―nurses, psychologists, doctors, and chaplains―as well as for caregivers seeking inspiration and students in medicine, nursing, psychology, theology, and social work.

Lars Johan Danbolt is Head of research at Research Center for Existential Health, Innlandet Hospital Trust, Norway, and adjunct professor at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society, Oslo, Norway. Main research fields are existential health, clinical psychology of religion, and practical theology.

Tatjana Schnell is Professor of Existential Psychology at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society, Oslo, Norway, and Fellow at the Humanistic University Berlin, Germany. As head of the Existential Psychology Lab, she focuses on fundamental questions of how to conceptualize and measure meaning in life and on the nexus of meaning in life and health, work, worldview, suffering and dying, civic engagement, and alienation.

Gry Stålsett is a specialist in Clinical Psychology and Associate Professor of Psychology of Religion at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society, Oslo. She serves as the Head of Clinical Practice at Bispehagen, Center for Existential Therapy and Counseling in Stavanger, Norway.

Peter la Cour PhD, is health psychologist, and adjunct professor at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society, Oslo, Norway. Main research interests are existential health, the psychology of pain and suffering, and psychology of religion.