Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T17:24:46.681Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - The good, the challenging and the supportive: mapping life with dementia in the community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2022

Richard Ward
Affiliation:
University of Stirling
Andrew Clark
Affiliation:
University of Salford
Lyn Phillipson
Affiliation:
University of Wollongong, Australia
Get access

Summary

Introduction

Developing bodies of work in interdisciplinary dementia research are engaging with concepts of place and spatiality as they relate to the everyday experience of living with dementia (Clarke and Bailey, 2016; Odzakovic et al, 2018). Rather than focus on the ‘dis-abilities’ of a person and their effect on navigation or wayfinding, these works have looked first to understand environmental barriers and to improve the enabling characteristics of environments – through features such as signage, pathways and distinctiveness (Mitchell and Burton, 2010). Building upon understanding the role of material geographies is work that engages with more progressive understandings of neighbourhoods as spaces of lived experience, belonging and relational ties (Ward et al, 2018; Clark et al, 2020). This evolving understanding of the vital importance of place and space for people with dementia is in contrast to a spatial literature where the relationship of people with dementia to space was pathologised – for example the reframing of the everyday practice of walking as a form of deviant wandering (Brittain et al, 2017). Rather than support mobility, a pathologising spatial lens problematises outdoor mobility for people with dementia as a health and safety risk and a social burden (MacAndrew et al, 2018). For those receiving a dementia diagnosis, notions like ‘prescribed dis-engagement’ (Swaffer, 2015) can foreclose possibilities for continuing involvement in the everyday spaces of community life. This prevalent narrative within the medicalised model sees dementia as a disease without a cure, with many medical practitioners accompanying diagnoses with instructions to abandon activities that are crucial to well-being and personhood and focus instead on end-of-life affairs and a potential trajectory of suffering.

People living with dementia have the right to freedom of movement and liberty and to be supported to maintain an ‘activity space’ (Hägerstrand, 1970) of regular social activities and movement within their neighbourhoods (Cahill 2018; Steele et al, 2019). These rights are being demanded through dementia activism and a closer alignment with the disability rights movement (Thomas and Milligan, 2018; Shakespeare et al, 2019). A new commitment to inclusion is also evident in some expressions of the international Dementia Friendly Communities (DFC) movement (Alzheimer's Disease International, 2017).

Type
Chapter
Information
Dementia and Place
Practices, Experiences and Connections
, pp. 160 - 185
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×