PROS pulls together much MCI information, including strategies for improvement, and differences from dementia: *****CONS too academic and detailed to be a self-help book for MCI patient; seriously lacking list of resources, print too small: ** or ***
This is a great book for those dealing with people who have MCI. A tremendous amount of information is collected here. Many other books (and support groups like the Alzheimer's Association) give MCI only minor attention and primarily deal with dementia. Instead, this book squarely addresses MCI itself, its characteristics (and differences from dementia), how it is diagnosed, questions to ask the doctor, strategies for coping and improving the life of the MCI patient, and so forth. It nicely clarified many aspects of this diagnosis, and I really appreciate having all of this information pulled together in one spot. High points and summaries are extracted and boxed (along with little vignettes), which is really helpful to the reader.
The biggest problem with this book is that the people who need it the most, MCI patients themselves, won't be able to deal with the textbook academic style of most of this book. Someone who is diagnosed with MCI has very little out there addressed to them specifically. They are caught in the territory between between normal aging, and dementia, which most information sources address. So this book supplies a tremendous resource, but because of the academic style, more for the family members of the MCI patient and for professionals who treat them.
I was really excited about this book when I read about it in the NY Times a few days ago, and immediately ordered it and read it cover-to-cover the day it arrived. The online preview of the book made it seem like it would be a great book to hand directly to my MCI family member (who is a DIY type who is refusing to avail herself of other help that is out there). I especially noticed Section Three of the book which has a number of chapters with proven improvement strategies, steps the patient can take to make a real difference. By chance the "Surprise Me!" pages missed all the dry academic discussions, so I hadn't realized that much of this book is written in medical journal style.
Unfortunately, this book can't decide what audience it is addressing. Some parts of the book are directly addressed to MCI patients themselves, e.g. "The previous section showed that exercise can improve cognitive functioning, increase the size and activity of *your* brain, and reduce dementia risk" (p. 254, emphasis added). However, the style and content of most of the book seems written for clinicians and academic journals. For example, they discuss various proposals for how MCI should be classified in the DSM-V. Frankly, patients and family members won't care about where MCI appears in the DSM. And in talking about whether specific individual nutrients help (in the section addressed to the MCI patient), they spend 20 lines of academic blather about randomized controlled trials, outcome measures, etc. (too much copying and pasting?). This level of discussion is way too detailed for the cognitively struggling MCI patient, when the authors just should have simply stated the conclusion: Eat a variety of foods, because so far, in spite of numerous well-controlled studies, there is no scientific evidence showing that there are any wonder nutrients to help with MCI. (p. 221).
Additionally, they did a less than half-hearted attempt to compile a list of "Memory Intervention Programs" (p. 152-153). It is misleadingly brief: only three in Canada, one in the US, and one in Germany; with a branch in Hong Kong. They should either make a serious attempt at assembling an accurate and more complete list, or they should not have included such an incomplete list at all. The effect is to make the reader feel rather hopeless about program availability, when this is not the case: In reality, there are many more Memory Training and Memory Care programs in medical centers in N. America. For example, they omitted the Memory Training program at UCLA (which has been licensed in several additional locations across the US). Other possible places to look for useful programs: the Alz Assn Community Resource Finder site for "Early Stage Programs", or perhaps NIH's Alzheimer's Disease Centers (listed in Jean Carper's book 100 Simple Things You Can Do to Prevent Alzheimer's and Age-Related Memory Loss. (p.299) [ETA Oct 3, 2012]
Finally, on my laptop screen, the font of the book preview is larger and more comfortable to read than in the actual printed book. So while I feel my MCI family member could easily read what I saw on the screen, the printed book is a less approachable smaller-print experience, that will be harder for many to read comfortably (ymmv). Since this book is ostensibly written for older people who have more problems with smaller print, this is an puzzling choice.
I really hope they (or someone else) writes a good non-babyish self-help book addressed to intelligent MCI patients themselves, that they take all the content of Section Three along with clarifying portions of the earlier parts, throw away all the academic prose, and produce something that will be genuinely helpful to MCI patients. For myself, I'm going to go through this book again and underline the most cogent portions, before passing it on, to make it more readable for my intended recipient.
p.s. There is evidence of hasty editing:
The URL given in the preface (for updates and a few worksheets) doesn't work, but you can access the (minimal) worksheets by googling "livingwithmci pdf site:baycrest.org" [as of this writing 10/3/2012]. [The URL is working now! ETA 10/25/2012]
The vignette in box 1.5 is about "Carlos", but when the text discusses that example, they talk about "Tom".
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