Thinking Through Dementia

Description:
With a rapidly expanding elderly population, there has been a marked increase in the incidence of dementia, and this dreadful, debilitating illness now affects - directly or indirectly - millions of people across the world. Dementia throws up a number of particular clinical, ethical, and conceptual problems, which mostly reflect complicated evaluative decisions, for instance about diagnosis and the distinction between normal and abnormal ageing. Different disciplines approach dementia in different ways - thus there are disease, cognitive neuropsychology, and social constructivist models of dementia, Underlying these models and approaches, each of which is clinically useful, are various and differing conceptual committments. These models carry ethical implications concerning how we ought to treat people suffereing from dementia. Thinking through Dementia offers a critique of the main models used to understand dementia-the biomedical, neuropsychological, and social constructionist. It discusses both clinical issues and cases, together with philosophical work that might help us better understand and treat this illness. Drawing on philosophical critique of models of dementia, as well as empirical data and clinical experience, the book unifies the biological, psychological, and social accounts of illness and disease. Highly original and thought provoking, this book will interest psychiatrists, philosophers, psychologists, and anyone involved in the care and management of those with dementia.

Table of Contents:
INTRODUCTION; 1. The clinical surround: values and versions; 2. The SEA view of persons; MENTAL STATES AND NORMATIVITY; 3. The mind and the world; 4. Normativity in the world; MODELS OF DEMENTIA; 5. The problem: models of dementia and normativity; 6. Moving towards a solution: dementia and the normative world; 7. The consequence: beyond models to the thing itself; PERSONHOOD AND THE WORLD; 8. From dementia-in-the-world to the human-person-perspective; 9. Dilemmas in dementia: a framework and philosophical approach; 10. Conversion and revolution