Thinking about Dementia: Culture, Loss, and the Anthropology of SenilityAnnette Leibing, Lawrence Cohen Cultural responses to most illnesses differ; dementia is no exception. These responses, together with a society's attitudes toward its elderly population, affect the frequency of dementia-related diagnoses and the nature of treatment. Bringing together essays by nineteen respected scholars, this unique volume approaches the subject from a variety of angles, exploring the historical, psychological, and philosophical implications of dementia. Based on solid ethnographic fieldwork, the essays employ a cross-cultural perspective and focus on questions of age, mind, voice, self, loss, temporality, memory, and affect. Taken together, the essays make four important and interrelated contributions to our understanding of the mental status of the elderly. First, cross-cultural data show the extent to which the aging process, while biologically influenced, is also very much culturally constructed. Second, detailed ethnographic reports raise questions about the behavioral criteria used by health care professionals and laymen for defining the elderly as demented. Third, case studies show how a diagnosis affects a patient's treatment in both clinical and familial settings.; Finally, the collection highlights the gap that separates current biological understandings of aging from its cultural meanings. As Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia continue to command an ever-increasing amount of attention in medicine and psychology, this book will be essential reading for anthropologists, social scientists, and health care professionals. |
Contents
PART | 21 |
Physician and Family | 43 |
The Experiences | 64 |
Epidemiological and Clinical | 80 |
The Biomedical Deconstruction of Senility and | 106 |
Creative Storytelling and SelfExpression among | 180 |
An Ethnographic Exploration | 195 |
Institutional Classification | 218 |
Alzheimers Disease the Person within | 240 |
Senility Power and SelfActualization | 269 |
Contributors | 289 |
Other editions - View all
Thinking about Dementia: Culture, Loss, and the Anthropology of Senility Annette Leibing,Lawrence Cohen No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
activities Alzheimer’s disease American approach associated become behavioral body brain caregivers Center changes clinical cognitive impairment coherence concept concerns condition considered context create criteria cultural database death dementia depression described developed diagnosis discussion Disorders doctor elderly emerged examine example experience fact functioning Geriatric Graham hospital human important individuals institution International interpretations interviews Jones Journal living look loss meaning medicine memory mental mother narrative nature normal nursing old age organized particular patients person personhood physicians possible practice present Press primary problems Psychiatry refer relation relationship residents response result senility sense signs social specific staff story storytelling structure suffering suggest symptoms tion Tran treatment turn understand unit University University Press viewed ward women York