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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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What do we mean when we talk about dementia?
— Exploring cultural representations of "dementia" | | Author(s) | Hannah Zeilig |
| Journal title | Working with Older People, vol 19, no 1, 2015 |
| Publisher | Emerald, 2015 |
| Pages | pp 12-20 |
| Source | www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/wwop.htm |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Attitude ; Attitudes to the old of general public ; Cultural activities. |
| Annotation | This paper aims to contribute to debates about the category "dementia", which is discussed as a social, political and cultural issue, rather than a solely medical phenomenon. The methodology synthesises perspectives from humanities with the social sciences. Thus, a number of cultural texts are analysed critically and set alongside data from two original research projects exploring the use of the arts for people living with a dementia. Central to the research is a close and critical examination of news reports, films, plays and documentaries that represent "dementia". The extent to which metaphorical language frames ways of talking about dementia formed a key part of this analysis. Until recently, "dementia" has been primarily defined in biomedical terms. This paper demonstrates that understandings of dementia should be extended to encompass social and cultural contexts. The research concentrates on the UK context, but there are lessons that can be extrapolated from or to other contexts. This paper explores why it is important to understand "dementia" in terms of cultural context, the reasons we should challenge the language often used to describe people living with a dementia, and the ways in which prevailing representations of people living with a dementia can affect perceptions and contribute to stigma. This paper presents an alternative perspective that is not biomedical, and draws on original research from both the humanities and social sciences investigating the stories that we tell about this complex condition. This is a revised version of a paper first presented at the 'Portraying Ageing: Cultural Assumptions and Practical Implications' one-day conference held at the British Library on 28 April 2014, which was co-organised with the Centre for Policy on Ageing (CPA) and the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-150619269 A |
| Classmark | EA: DP: TOB: H4 |
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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