Rahman aims to provide an introduction to what it means to live well with dementia. He highlights in his introduction to this text that living well with dementia is a complex and challenging issue for our society. This challenge extends to the undertaking of writing a book on this topic, which must necessarily address a diverse range of issues and attempt to make it accessible to a wide audience.

This ambitious book includes 17 chapters that address various aspects of the importance of the person and the environment for wellbeing. The earlier chapters deal with theoretical perspectives that underpin the book, such as what it means to live well and how this can be measured, and socio-economic arguments for promoting living well with dementia. The next chapters focus on social, psychological and neurological factors associated with living well, including leisure activities, end-of-life care, the impact of different types of dementia, decision-making and communication. The latter chapters focus on the physical environment and living well, including home and hospital ward design, assistive technologies, ambient assisted living, built environments and dementia-friendly communities. One of the strengths of this book is that all of these topics are underpinned by the philosophy and principles of person-centred care. Thus, the perspective and needs of the person with dementia and their family are considered throughout and there is a focus on retained abilities and understanding what people can do, rather than what they cannot.

The challenge of covering such a diverse range of topics is no better demonstrated than in the early theoretical chapters of the book, where vast and complex areas such as what it means to live well and the measurement of wellbeing and quality of life in dementia are covered within the confines of 20 or so pages. One limitation of this book is that the depth of coverage of these topics may be too superficial for those with some familiarity of the issues, but at the same time lack sufficient explanation for readers coming to them for the first time. Other chapters, however, such as those addressing the debate around dementia screening and case finding, and the value of advocacy and decision making in dementia, provide a clearer and more comprehensive coverage of the topic and, thus, offer a basic overview suitable for all audiences.

There is a huge breadth of published and constantly evolving evidence available on the topics covered in each of the book's chapters and Rahman draws on a range of policy, seminal texts, websites and research evidence in putting forward his thesis. Some chapters reproduce extensive quotes from academic sources and many references are freely available online, meaning much of the background evidence is, therefore, accessible to any reader, should they wish to explore a topic further. This will undoubtedly be a positive for many. It is inevitably difficult though, to ensure a balance between inclusion of a significant number of accessible sources as well as a good range of up-to-date research evidence, when writing an inclusive book of this nature. Overall, Rahman generally manages this balance, although some chapters rely principally on policy documents, reports, web sources and a few seminal research papers, and lack inclusion of contemporary supporting research evidence. In some sections there is no citation of background sources at all, meaning there is a lack of clarity as to the evidence upon which the arguments are based. The writing style Rahman adopts is accessible throughout, although the littering of the text with phrases placed in quotation marks did become a distraction at times.

Overall, this book does what Rahman states he hopes it will achieve; in that, rather than providing an ‘authoritative source of information to rely on’ (p. 3) the book outlines general principles that may ‘provide an interesting and thought-provoking introduction to [an] ever-enlarging field’ (p. 2). As such, it may be of interest to undergraduate students and practitioners who wish to gain a basic grounding in a range of contemporary issues relevant to living well with dementia. It is possibly less suitable though for those seeking a robust academic textbook.