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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Rethinking sociability in long-term care
— an embodied dimension of selfhood | | Author(s) | Pia C Kontos |
| Journal title | Dementia: the international journal of social research and practice, vol 11, no 3, May 2012 |
| Pages | pp 329-346 |
| Source | http://dem.sagepub.com/ |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Social interaction ; Communication ; Attitude ; Self esteem. |
| Annotation | The author argues for an expansion of the discourse on sociability to include embodied self-expression as contained in the theoretical notion of 'embodied selfhood'. Embodied selfhood is the pre-reflective nature of selfhood deriving from the body's pre-reflective capacity for engaging with the world and the socio-cultural significance of the body. This paper calls for the discourse on sociability in dementia to include embodied selfhood as a source of interactive practices. An eight-month ethnographic study of selfhood in dementia was conducted in a Canadian long-term care facility. The majority suffered with Alzheimer's disease and a smaller number of residents had vascular dementia. Thirteen residents took part in the study. The findings are discussed in terms of empathy, social etiquette, and the power of gesture. The observations suggest that social and cultural habits, movements and other physical cues serve important communicative functions in the course of social interaction. The author believes this underscores how sociability is an embodied dimension of selfhood, which not only broadens the discourse on sociability in dementia but also offers important insights to inform person-centred dementia care. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-120720005 A |
| Classmark | EA: TMA: U: DP: DPA |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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