Dementia
Mind, Meaning, and the Person
Published on 8. December 2005
Book
Paperback/Softback
328 pages
978-0-19-856615-1 (ISBN)
Description
Dementia is an illness that raises important questions about our own attitudes to illness and aging. It also raises very important issues beyond the bounds of dementia to do with how we think of ourselves as people - fundamental questions about personal identity. Is the person with dementia the same person he or she was before? Is the individual with dementia a person at all? In a striking way, dementia seems to threaten the very existence of the self.
This book brings together philosophers and practitioners to explore the conceptual issues that arise in connection with this increasingly common illness. Drawing on a variety of philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, Hume, Wittgenstein, the authors explore the nature of personal identity in dementia. They also show how the lives and selfhood of people with dementia can be enhanced by attention to their psychosocial and spiritual environment. Throughout, the book conveys a strong ethical message, arguing in favour of treating people with dementia with all the dignity they deserve as human beings. The book covers a range of topics, stretching from talk of basic biology to talk of a spiritual understanding of people with dementia. Accessibly written by leading figures in psychiatry and philosophy, the book presents a unique and long overdue examination of an illness that features in so many of our lives.
This book brings together philosophers and practitioners to explore the conceptual issues that arise in connection with this increasingly common illness. Drawing on a variety of philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, Hume, Wittgenstein, the authors explore the nature of personal identity in dementia. They also show how the lives and selfhood of people with dementia can be enhanced by attention to their psychosocial and spiritual environment. Throughout, the book conveys a strong ethical message, arguing in favour of treating people with dementia with all the dignity they deserve as human beings. The book covers a range of topics, stretching from talk of basic biology to talk of a spiritual understanding of people with dementia. Accessibly written by leading figures in psychiatry and philosophy, the book presents a unique and long overdue examination of an illness that features in so many of our lives.
Reviews / Votes
Accessibly written by leading figures in dementia care, psychiatry, and philosophy, the book presents a unique examination of an illness that will affect our lives directly or indirectly and promotes a person-centered approach to dementia care. The book is recommended for a broad audience of health care providers and family caregivers. * Helen Lavretsky MD, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 69:8 * ...this book constitutes a unique and valuable contribution to the field, contextualizing understandings of selfhood and identity in dementia in a broad philosophical and theological literature. ...his collection of chapters is bound to inform and challenge readers of the Dementia journal to think broadly about both understandings of dementia and of personal identity more generally. * Dementia 6(2), * The book covers not only the philosophical but also social, spiritual, ethical and practical perspectives and the negative, soul-destroying attitudes about dementia in modern society...This is a good book. It will not change base metal into gold but via a mosaic of ideas introduces a way of thinking. Ostensibly it is about dementia...about what it is to be human. * British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol 190 * It is clear from this collection that bodily intentionality, spiritual and religious faith, emotion and relational capacity must count as morally relevant features of the person whose self-consciousness and memory have faded. One hopes that Dementia: Mind, Meaning and the Person will inspire further philosophical quests for a more exhaustive and inclusive understanding of personhood and the application of such insights to practice. * Ageing and Society *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Old age psychiatrists, geriatricians, neurologists, gerontologists, Philosophers, ethicists.
Illustrations
2 diagrams; 6 halftones
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
500 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-856615-1 (9780198566151)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
12/2005
Oxford University Press
€231.20
Shipment within 15-20 days
Persons
Dr Julian C. Hughes is currently the Chair of the Philosophy Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Dr Stephen J. Louw is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of South Africa, of the Royal College of Physicians of London, and of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He is currently Vice Chair of the UK Network for Clinical Ethics Committees. He was formerly Professor of Geriatric Medicine in the University of Cape Town.
Professor Steven R. Sabat is Associate Editor of Dementia: The International Journal of Social Research and Practice. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Greater Washington D.C. chapter of the Alzheimer's Disease Association and has been a co-leader of a support group for people with Alzheimer's disease. He is currently Professor of Psychology at Georgetown University.
Dr Stephen J. Louw is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of South Africa, of the Royal College of Physicians of London, and of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He is currently Vice Chair of the UK Network for Clinical Ethics Committees. He was formerly Professor of Geriatric Medicine in the University of Cape Town.
Professor Steven R. Sabat is Associate Editor of Dementia: The International Journal of Social Research and Practice. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Greater Washington D.C. chapter of the Alzheimer's Disease Association and has been a co-leader of a support group for people with Alzheimer's disease. He is currently Professor of Psychology at Georgetown University.
Editor
Conultant and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer in Old Age Psychiatry, Northumbria Healthcare, NHS Trust and Institute for Ageing and Health, University of Newcastle, UK
Consultant Physician in Medicine and Geriatric Medicine, Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Professor of Psychology, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA
Content
1. Seeing whole ; 2. Ageing and human nature ; 3. Dementia and personal identity ; 4. Identity: self and dementia ; 5. Into the darkness: losing identity with dementia ; 6. Can the self disintegrate? Personal identity, psychopathology and disunities of consciousness ; 7. Keeping track, autobiography and the conditions for self erosion ; 8. The discursive turn, social constructionism and dementia ; 9. The return of the living dead: agency lost and found? ; 10. Dementia and the identity of the person ; 11. Meaning-making in dementia: a hermeneutic perspective ; 12. I am, thou art: personal identity in dementia ; 13. Spiritual perspectives on the person with dementia: identity and personhood ; 14. 'Respectare': moral respect for the lives of the deeply forgetful ; 15. Understandings of dementia: explanatory models and their implications for the person with dementia and therapeutic effort ; 16. Personhood and interpersonal communication in dementia ; 17. From childhood to childhood? Autonomy and dependence through the ages of life ; 18. Mind, meaning and personhood in dementia: the effects of positioning