Person-centered dementia care: current perspectives

Person-centered dementia care is widely accepted as a value-based commitment to supporting people with dementia and is a guiding principle in care services. Policy ambitions to put people at the center of their own care are being developed internationally. These may be seen as part of the evolution of person-centered care which has its origins in critical perspectives on practice and social responses to people with dementia. In England, one further development of person-centered care has been personalization – a government policy to extend individuals’ choice and control over their social care and, latterly, ways to meet their health care needs. This paper charts the evolution of the concept of person-centered care to the policy of personalization (which has international comparators) and summarizes emerging and conflicting evidence about the implications of personal budgets in England on older people with mental health problems such as dementia and their families. It focuses on the evidence base of personalization and on emerging lessons for practice, drawing from the implementation of personalization and the adoption of personal budgets by this group. While personalization may be one policy initiative, the values and practices of person-centered dementia care remain fundamental to practice and are inspiring new ideas related to rights and justice for people with dementia.