Communication with people with dementia: how effective is training?

This article considers the evidence for effectiveness of training to support and enhance communication between people who have dementia and those who work with them. It focuses mainly on care workers in residential and day care settings for people with dementia. However, communication is an important aspect of quality life, and family carers consistently rate communication difficulties among the hardest problems to cope with (Nolan et al 2002), so I will briefly first consider training and support approaches for family and friends.