
Coming to terms with dementia is one of the great challenges of our time. This volume of new interdisciplinary essays by internationally established scholars offers new ways of understanding and dealing with it. It explores views of dementia that go beyond the idea of loss, and rather envisions it as multilayered transformation and change of personhood and identity, and as development that mostly is socially shared with others. The studies collected here identify new empirical, theoretical, and methodological areas that will be crucial to future research and clinical practice concerned with age-related dementia. Three general themes are singled out as of particular importance and interest: persons and personhood, identity and agency, and the social and the communal.
This volume investigates whether dementia can be understood as a complex process of transformation and identity shift rather than a simple narrative of decline and loss. The authors, including Hilde Lindemann and Jens Brockmeier, utilize an interdisciplinary framework that synthesizes clinical research with philosophical inquiry to challenge traditional medical models. By examining the intersection of social interaction and cognitive change, the text argues for a more nuanced approach to personhood that persists even as cognitive faculties diminish.
What You Will Find
Experts in gerontology and medical humanities recognize this collection as a significant contribution to shifting the discourse around cognitive decline. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which serves as a foundational text for clinicians and researchers seeking to integrate social theory into their practice.
Page Count:
224
Publication Date:
2014-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0199969272
ISBN-13:
9780199969272
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