Sir, I was disappointed to read Anjana Ahuja’s report on Dr Guy Brown’s new book (March 17).

As a professor in dementia studies, I frequently refer back to the dark ages in our field when people with dementia were viewed as the “living dead”, and we were overcome with a sense of hopelessness in the face of an apparently devastating condition. I hadn’t fully realised that, for some, this nihilist picture persists.

There is a lot I would like to say about the therapeutic optimism now associated with care of people with dementia, but I can use this space better by directing your readers to the 2006 report by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence/Social Care Institute for Excellence entitled Dementia: Supporting People with Dementia and their Carers in Health and Social Care where much of this is incorporated as guideline for best practice.

In this age of embracing diversity and celebrating equality I am left wondering if Ms Ahuja and Dr Brown consider this as pertaining only to the able-bodied or, in this case, able-minded? Indeed, the recent House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report Improving Services and Support for People with Dementia agrees with the author’s concern about a lack of research on dementia, but rather than advocating euthanasia, challenges the Department of Health and the NHS to place priority on care of such a vulnerable group.

Fortunately we are now only months away from a national dementia strategy. I have never been more convinced of its need than when I read this article.

Professor Murna Downs

Chair in Dementia Studies

Head, Bradford Dementia Group

School of Health Studies, University of Bradford

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