35 years with dementia: learning to care for the person in relationship Seminar

The first study was an examination of the newly developing specialist psychogeriatric services, a lynchpin in the policy of improving services to older people suffering mental illness and infirmity. The earlier language of ‘senility’ was being replaced by more precise diagnoses. A major priority for the new services, as far as dementia was concerned, was avoiding breakdown in care (and consequent blocking of hospital beds) by providing more flexible responses to the needs of over-stressed family caregivers. Only much later did equivalent attention begin to be paid to the needs and rights of dementing persons themselves. As the numbers of those suffering from dementia continue to expand, learning to care for the person in relationship to close family and friends will become ever more important. Philosophical and theological reflection on our concept of the person can contribute to this task, since in origin it is about a person in relationship to others rather than an individual considered in isolation.