The Essential Handbook of Memory Disorders for Clinicians. Edited by A. D. Baddeley, M. D. Kopelman and B. A. Wilson. (Pp. 392; 26.99; ISBN 0-470-09141-X pb.) John Wiley and Sons Ltd: Chichester. 2004

This book was written by leading experts in this field, working in the UK, USA, and Australia. This edition is a shortened and revised version of a much larger, 35-chapter handbook, The Handbook of Memory Disorders. The chapters are all well structured and provide a good coverage of the subject, including the neuropsychology, assessment, differential diagnosis, management, and emotional and social consequences of the various memory disorders. A general introduction to the psychology of memory sets the stage for extensive reviews describing the amnesic syndrome, posttraumatic amnesia and memory deficit after closed head injury, psychogenic amnesia, developmental and acquired childhood amnesias, Alzheimer’s disease, and subcortical dementia. The various memory disorders are amply illustrated by carefully selected case descriptions, and useful comments are made regarding the conceptual or even forensic aspects. Although the selection of the chapters is generally comprehensive, relatively little is devoted to the practical case management of patients with memory problems within the health-care system, i.e. screening, monitoring, referral to a memory clinic, or other specialists, or the use of the diagnostic armoury. The same can be said about certain challenging areas in the differential diagnosis, such as the depression-dementia or Alzheimer’s disease-frontotemporal dementia interface. The chapter on ‘The assessment and intervention in dementia of the Alzheimer type’ provides a useful table with the routinely applied neuropsychological tests ; perhaps it would be even more useful if some indication was given as to the cut-off scores and the sensitivity of these measures to help the clinician who is trying to make sense of a neuropsychological report on a patient in whom early dementia is suspected. Although the pharmacological (and other routine or experimental medical) management was given comparatively less attention, a wide scope of psychosocial interventions to improve the lives of those with memory disorders are extensively reviewed in relevant parts of the book. A separate chapter deals with ‘External memory aids and computers in memory rehabilitation’, and another with the ‘Emotional and social consequences of memory disorders’. The conclusions at the end of the chapters may sometimes seem a little too short and to fail to summarize the chapter. It might have been useful, for example, to state clearly what is proven, what is generally accepted, and what is still contentious. In general, however, the chapters are a comprehensive and useful resource of up-to-date information. The title needs some explanation, as this book, despite its title, does not follow the structure of the type of clinical handbooks one might expect. Various aspects of the same disorder are discussed in different chapters, and it is not always easy to locate the necessary bit of information even when it actually is mentioned in the book. Unlike many clinician-oriented handbooks, this book was compiled by selecting one or two, sometimes rather broad chapters written by each highly acclaimed author on his or her subject(s) of interest. The editors – despite what they claim in their Preface – did not seem to present the findings of the otherwise rather thoroughly selected research in a clinician-friendly format, i.e. grouping the descriptions of the signs and symptoms, the assessment, and the management of the same disorder under one heading. In its present format, ‘ the busy clinician’ will sometimes have to read through the whole book if he wants to make sure he has not just failed to find the data he was looking for. He may get disappointed if he – having been attracted by the blurb on the back cover – starts to read the pages of this book with the intention of refreshing his knowledge quickly, often with a patient waiting Psychological Medicine, 2005, 35, 1083–1088. f 2005 Cambridge University Press Printed in the United Kingdom