Leisure and Everyday Life with Dementia

“This exciting and unique book provides a significant collection of the research base and theory surrounding leisure and dementia.”

Dr Mary O’Malley, BSc, PhD, CPsychol, Senior Research Fellow, Association for Dementia Studies, University of Worcester, UK

“This is the most important edited collection to emerge from leisure studies in the last thirty years.” 

Professor Karl Spracklen, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Leeds Beckett University, UK

“This book is a novel collection of works that not only broadens and enriches our understandings of the importance of leisure for people living with dementia, but in demonstrating the possibilities for living well with dementia through engagement with leisure, it helps to build the foundation for developing an ethical standard to support such engagement to the fullest extent possible.”

Pia Kontos, Senior Scientist and Professor, KITE Research Institute, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute – University Health Network, and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada

This book examines leisure in the everyday lives of people living with dementia and challenges readers to consider the role of leisure activities beyond their potential for therapeutic benefit. 

Leisure and Everyday Life with Dementia emphasises how leisure offers people living with dementia opportunity to realise their citizenship through participating in leisure in everyday life. It explores the role of society in enabling this through giving equal chances to make choices about how, when and where people participate. This book:

• Examines diverse kinds of leisure, including sports, music, travel, nature, and the online world

• Contains accessible summaries and ‘So what does this mean in practice?’ sections at the end of each chapter

• Has been co-edited and written with a guiding vision provided by a person living with dementia

• Contains contributions from authors across the world and across multiple disciplines.

Leisure and Everyday Life with Dementia is essential reading for anyone whose study or work in nursing or social care, occupational therapy, social work, arts therapies, arts, health and wellbeing, sports and exercise, or gerontology includes an interest in dementia.

The Reconsidering Dementia Series is an interdisciplinary series published by Open University Press that covers contemporary issues to challenge and engage readers in thinking deeply about the topic. The dementia field has developed rapidly in its scope and practice over the past ten years and books in this series will unpack not only what this means for the student, academic and practitioner, but also for all those affected by dementia.

Series Editors: Dr Keith Oliver and Professor Dawn Brooker MBE.

Dr Karen Gray is a researcher at the University of Bristol, UK. She has wide-ranging experience in researching and evaluating engagement in arts and creative activity for health and wellbeing. 

Dr Chris Russell is Senior Lecturer with the Association for Dementia Studies at the University of Worcester, UK, where he is Programme Lead for the Post Graduate Certificate in Dementia Studies. 

Jane Twigg has a background as a physiotherapist. This was before caring for her mom, who had dementia, including supporting Mom to continue to live in the world. Jane is now living with atypical dementia. She has a passion for life. Long distance walking brings her most joy, giving her a sense of achievement and wellbeing.