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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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The war against dementia
— are we battle weary yet? | | Author(s) | Heather Patricia Lane, SueAnne McLachlan, Jennifer Philip |
| Journal title | Age and Ageing, vol 42, no 3, May 2013 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press, May 2013 |
| Pages | pp 281-283 |
| Source | www.ageing.oxfordjournals.org |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Symbols. |
| Annotation | Recently the use of military metaphors when discussing dementia and in particular Alzheimer's disease has increased, both in medical literature and mainstream media. Titles including `Harnessing the immune system to battle Alzheimer's disease', `Developing the framework for the international battle against Alzheimer's disease' and `Dementia in Lewy body syndromes: a battle between hearts and minds' have all been found in medical journals. The UK's Alzheimer's Society website carries the banner 'leading the fight against Alzheimer's disease', while in the U.S. headlines reported President Obama declaring `War on Alzheimer's disease' early in 2012. While military metaphors are a recent adoption when used to describe dementia, in oncology there has been longstanding debate about the usefulness of such metaphors. This article reviews the history of military metaphors in medicine, literature discussing their use, and considers their use in describing dementia. While military metaphors are widely used in medicine, consideration should be taken in their use as they have the potential to influence the way in which doctors and their patients conceptualise and experience illness and treatment. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-130510206 A |
| Classmark | EA: UH7 |
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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