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Making Tough Decisions About End-of-life Care in Dementia Anne Kenny, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2018, 218 pp., pbk US $19.95, ISBN 13: 978-1-4212-2667-9

At a time when talking about end of life is slowly becoming less of a taboo and more and more of us are advocating for care and support for it, Anne Kenny presents insightful perspectives, thoughts, stories and advice fromher time supporting patients and their loved ones with dementia at the end of life, as well as her own experiences caring for hermother. As a nursemyself who has looked aftermany patients at the end of life andwho has conducted research into talking about end of life, I am a huge advocate for the power of stories and narratives. Kenny has used narratives and stories not only to share her experiences but to introduce, highlight, emphasise and illustrate the decision-making process at the end of life in dementia. The book works through the potential journey of end-of-life care in dementia, each chapter discussing a different aspect. Chapter 1 – ‘Understanding the End and the Need for Letting Go’ – is a good introductory chapter as it describes in detail the stages of dementia and what may happen in the later stages of dementia. Kenny illustrates the progression through the story of John who moved in with his son and daughter-in-law, Bart and Inga, when his dementia had reached moderate levels of severity. It describes how John would potter about the house during the day and when they all sat around the dinner table, they would discuss one another’s workdays and John would discuss the jobs that he had done at home. As John’s dementia progressed further, Inga felt it was time for Bart to let someone else do the care-giving. Kenny describes how she knew that Bart accepted this: