I don’t suppose more than a few people on the planet read my Ph.D. thesis which was called ‘Specific cognitive deficits in the frontal lobe dementias’.

Releasing a book is altogether more nerve-wracking in that you become aware of feedback almost instantaneously.

I’m sure people will tweet me to my @dr_shibley account.

I would like to say a few words about the book here.

I’d like to thank all three people who’ve written brilliant forewords for my book: Kate Swaffer (@KateSwaffer), Chris Roberts (@mason4233) and Beth Britton (@BethyB1886).

In this book, I call for people living with dementia, and their closest – including friends and family, to be called to the forefront of developing and implementing policy.

I hope I’ve written the book in a style which means anyone from any background can ‘dip into’ the book as they wish. In fact, the book covers some pretty heavyweight topics in cognitive neurology, domestic and international law, medical research and leadership. So I feel it unlikely that any training grade doctor will be familiar with all the topics in depth.

I unreservedly have written this book for people living with dementia and their closest, but I feel the people who might also benefit from reading this book include doctors, nurses, AHPs, commissioners, academic researchers, social care practitioners, the media, the voluntary sector, and other interested members of the general public.

The future is very organic – and we are writing the future as we speak. I have no doubt there will be advances in drug therapy for Alzheimer’s disease in the very near future, but we all have a society to ensure that the 47 million or so people living with dementia have their human rights observed. Identifying ability and disability produces the landscape for rights-based approaches, including reablement and rehabilitation.

It’s not good enough, I feel, for there to be ‘dementia friendly communities’. There needs to be a fundamental re-wiring to ‘mainstream inclusive communities’.

I’d be very surprised if you agree with the book in its entirety. It’s meant to ‘spark’ a debate, that’s all.

The book is not professional advice either – which gives me some licence to bring the future closer.

The details of the book are here.