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What do people with dementia and their carers really need?

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Julian Hughes

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Abstract

By far and away the biggest research effort in connection with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias is aimed at achieving a cure and early diagnosis is considered to be an important aspect of this. In fact, early diagnosis tends to mean ‘earlier diagnosis’, which in turn means ‘prediagnosis’. In this article I shall offer a critique of this view and point to some underpinning thoughts that I believe should inform practice. First, we need to rename dementia. Second, in order to understand the aging brain, we need to understand the notion of ‘dementia-in-the-world’. Third, to think about care appropriately, we need to think of it from the perspective of the person. From this perspective, care – in the form of Heidegger’s notion of solicitude – is fundamental and is, therefore, what people with dementia and their carers really need.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Hughes J

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Neurodegenerative Disease Management

Year: 2011

Volume: 1

Issue: 1

Pages: 37-42

Print publication date: 01/02/2011

ISSN (print): 1758-2024

ISSN (electronic): 1758-2032

Publisher: Future Medicine Ltd.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.2217/nmt.11.3

DOI: 10.2217/nmt.11.3

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