Simon Thompson is a specialist in clinical neurospychology at Portsmouth in the south of England. He formerly held positions as Visiting Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Portsmouth and as an NHS Consultant in Clinical Neuropsychology. He is the author of earlier titles on related subjects, such as Dementia: A Guide for Health Care Professionals (Reference Thompson1997) and Memory Problems (Reference Thompson2001). This new book discusses both subjects. It has three sections. Part 1 defines dementia and memory; Part 2 deals with coping with memory problems; and Part 3 with coping with dementia.

Part I has four chapters. The first is a well-balanced introduction to the concept of dementia and the distinction between memory problems in normal ageing, in depression and anxiety states, and in dementia. Chapter 2 addresses the definition and differential diagnosis of dementia. Alzheimer's disease (AD), vascular dementia, Pick's disease (obsolete terminology), Parkinson's disease and rarer causes of dementia and memory problems, such as Huntington's, Creutzfeldt-Jakob, multiple sclerosis, and Korsakoff's. All are discussed but there are no new insights. In fact current criteria, like NINDS-AIREN and Lund Manchester, are completely overlooked. Chapters 3 and 4 are very brief and deal with the characterisation of memory disorders and with learning disabilities and the social and cultural differences in the acceptance of normal ageing, learning disabilities, memory problems and dementia respectively.

Part II, comprising Chapters 5, 6 and 7, presents several ways of coping with memory problems. In Chapters 5 and 6, practical tips and ways of treating memory problems are discussed. Chapter 7, ‘Case studies on memory’, discusses the effects of donezepil on visual memory in patients with mild or moderate AD attending a Pfizer-funded memory clinic to which the author was the consultant clinical neuropsychologist. Part III has six chapters on coping with dementia. Chapter 8, ‘How to assess dementia’, rests almost exclusively on history taking and neuropsychological testing. Chapters 9 and 10, ‘How to cope with dementia’ and ‘How to manage dementia’, again are rather brief, the latter providing only an in-depth description of instructions on the use of progressive muscle relaxation exercises. Chapter 11 should provide the reader with case studies on dementia, but does not live up to the expectations raised by its title. Chapter 12 does offer case studies on dementia and learning disability but the predominant focus is on the association between Down's syndrome, cognitive decline and AD with age, which has already been discussed, in somewhat lesser detail, in an earlier chapter. The final chapter (13) should present future directions for people with dementia. It fails to do so. For instance, the one paragraph discussing medical treatment for AD is limited to the drugs that were around in 1995.

Throughout the book, but especially in the first few chapters, we found almost identical sentences in different places, suggesting a disturbingly liberal use of the ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ functions. The book still adheres to the now outdated thought that the definite diagnosis of AD relies upon post-mortem histopathologic examination of brain tissue. Too little attention is given to the importance of MRI imaging, in addition to clinical criteria and neuropsychological tests in the differential diagnosis of dementia and in the diagnosis of AD in the clinical setting, as well as to recent insights in the usefulness of cerebrospinal fluid markers like Amyloid β42, tau protein and phosphorylated tau in the diagnosis of AD. In his discussion of vascular dementia (Chapter 2), the author claims that ‘the aetiology of this type of dementia is a series of small strokes’, which fails to recognise the very different pathogenic mechanisms involved in this heterogenic group, which range from small vessel disease to large vessel stroke. In Chapter 4, the author states that ‘a characteristic of Down's syndrome is the presence of an extra gene on chromosome 21 (trisomy 21)’, instead of defining Down's syndrome as being fundamentally characterised by the overproduction of APP because of the presence of three chromosomes 21.

The vast majority of the cited references date back to the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, and among the scarce more recent references we noted, the latest were from 2002. All in all, therefore, this book adds very little to existing knowledge and does not live up to the expectations in the title. It cannot be recommended to students and professionals working in the field of dementia.