Editor’s View – Updated guidance on managing dementia

We are looking to publish more good quality guidelines and guideline summaries in the journal. One challenge with guidelines is that they can be difficult for even the most avid clinicians to assimilate and digest. The Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network (SIGN) Guideline on managing dementia is a good example due to its sheer size and scope, but our latest issue includes an approved, more readable summary and commentary [1]. The guideline specifically focussed on areas less well covered in other guidance and was heavily influenced by people with lived experience of dementia and their carers. There is greater focus on seeing the person with dementia and their carer as a dyad, as well as tackling the considerable pre-death grief that accompanies the condition. Although some of the guidance is most relevant to Scotland, almost the entire guideline is equally applicable and pertinent to the rest of the world, so I recommend having a look because there is a big gap between the lived experience of dementia and the ideal care described by the guideline. If you, like me, sometimes worry that guidelines are sometimes used as a poor substitute for thinking, be assured that we will only publish guidelines relevant to our patients. For a comprehensive commentary of what relevant, person-centred guidelines for use in older people’s care should look like, check out the sterling work by Martin and colleagues from our editorial board [2].