Thinking about dementia : : culture, loss, and the anthropology of senility / / edited by Annette Leibing, Lawrence Cohen.

• Superior document: Studies in medical anthropology
• TeilnehmendeR: Leibing, Annette.; Cohen, Lawrence, 1961-
• Year of Publication: 2006
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Studies in medical anthropology.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (310 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Bringing together essays by nineteen respected scholars, this volume approaches dementia from a variety of angles, exploring its historical, psychological, and philosophical implications. The authors employ a cross-cultural perspective that is based on ethnographic fieldwork and focuses on questions of age, mind, voice, self, loss, temporality, memory, and affect. Taken together, the essays make four important and interrelated contributions to our understanding of the mental status of the elderly. First, cross-cultural data show that the aging process, while biologically influenced, is also culturally constructed. Second, ethnographic reports raise questions about the diagnostic criteria used for defining the elderly as demented. Third, case studies show how a diagnosis affects a patient's treatment in both clinical and familial settings. Finally, the collection highlights the gap that separates current biological understandings of aging from its cultural meanings. As Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia continue to command an ever-increasing amount of attention in medicine and psychology, this book will be essential reading for anthropologists, social scientists, and health care professionals.

Table of Contents

Dementia-near-death and "life itself" / Sharon R. Kaufman -- The borderlands of primary care : physician and family perspectives on "troublesome" behaviors of people with dementia / Ladson Hinton ... [et al.] -- Negotiating the moral status of trouble : the experiences of forgetful individuals diagnosed with no dementia / Andre P. Smith -- Diagnosing dementia : epidemiological and clinical data as cultural text / Janice E. Graham -- The biomedical deconstruction of senility and the persistent stigmatization of old age in the United States / Jesse F. Ballenger -- Genetic susceptibility and Alzheimer's disease : the penetrance and uptake of genetic knowledge / Margaret Lock, Stephanie Lloyd, and Janalyn Prest -- Coherence without facticity in dementia : the case of Mrs. Fine / Athena Helen McLean -- Creative storytelling and self-expression among people with dementia / Anne Davis Basting -- Embodied selfhood : an ethnographic exploration of Alzheimer's disease / Pia C. Kontos -- Normality and difference : institutional classification and the constitution of subjectivity in a Dutch nursing home / Roma Chatterji -- Divided gazes : Alzheimer's disease, the person within, and death in life / Annette Leibing -- Being a good rojin : senility, power, and self-actualization in Japan / John W. Traphagan.