Dementia Discourse: From Imposed Suffering to Knowing Other-Wise

Abstract

The authors revisit the troubling discourse surrounding the diagnosis of dementia. A critique of the predominant words and images in health care literature, public discourse, and policy is considered from multiple angles. The authors link the dominant words and images with a form of inter-relational violence. Contrary images grounded in research and experience offer a different view of what it is like to live with a diagnosis of dementia—a view that is life-affirming and based in relationality and possibility. Concepts of embodied selfhood and knowing other-wise are portrayed as doorways to transforming a discourse of violence toward a discourse of compassion and ethical relating.