The BPSD Textbook is a new must-have textbook for every health and aged care worker involved in the care of people living with dementia.

BPSD Textbook: Addressing behaviours and psychological symptoms of dementia, launched at the International Dementia Conference 2022, seeks to reshape the narrative in aged care homes towards understanding and seeing the person living with dementia rather than their behaviours, and aims to establish non-pharmacological interventions as the best practice response, rather than medication and restraint.

Up to 90% of people living with dementia will experience forms of BPSD during their journey with the disease, and many of them will be wrongly prescribed medications or chemically or physically restrained.

BPSD may include psychosis, agitation and aggression, depression, anxiety, apathy, impulsivity, pacing, vocalisations, appetite and eating changes, sleep disturbances, distress during personal care and wayfinding difficulties.

BPSD may include:

• psychosis
• agitation and aggression
• depression
• anxiety
• apathy
• impulsivity
• pacing
• vocalisations
• appetite and eating changes
• sleep disturbances
• distress during personal care and wayfinding difficulties.

Associate Professor Colm Cunningham, one of the book's authors, along with Associate Professor Stephen Macfarlane and Dr Madeleine Healey, said understanding the person is the first and fundamental step in managing what is often complex and multifaceted.

“Changes in behaviour will have many catalysts and causes, be they as a consequence of the progressive nature of the many organic conditions encompassed by the term dementia, or on too many occasions, a reasonable response to unmet needs and circumstances a person with dementia will face”
Colm Cunningham
Associate Professor & book author