How We Think About Dementia

Professor Julian C. Hughes is Consultant in Old Age Psychiatry for Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Professor of Philosophy of Ageing at the Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences (PEALS) Research Centre, Newcastle University. He is co-author of Ethical Issues in Dementia Care: Making Difficult Decisions, also published by JKP. He lives in Newcastle, UK.

• Preface. Introduction. Part I: Ageing. 1. Our Changing Expectations of Life: What Do We Really Want? 2. Research, Ageing and Dementia. Part II: Personhood. 3. Memory: Inner or Outer? 4. I am still the same person. 5. The Body in Dementia. Part III: Capacity and Incapacity. 6. 'Capacity': What is it and so what? 7. Capacity Legislation in Practice: Balancing Personal and Polis. 8. Incapacity and Mental Disorder. Part IV: Palliative and Supportive Care. 9. Beyond Hypercognitivism. 10. Understanding the Language of Distress. 11. Ethics, Patterns, Causes and Pathways: In Pursuit of Good Palliative Care. 12. Intentions and Best Interests: Dying and Killing. Part V: Arts. 13. The Art and Practice of Memory and Forgetting co-authored with Ashley McCormick, artist, curator and educator. 14. In Praise of 'Negative Capability': Keats and Killick. Conclusion: Care – Solicitude and Solidarity. References and Further Reading. Index.

In this book, Julian Hughes makes a powerful and compelling case for a revolution in the treatment of people with dementia. He underscores the need to summon immediately the personal and political will to engage people with dementia as people who respond positively to the solicitude and open engagement provided by those deemed healthy. Viewing dementia and ageing in the broad scope of human life, yet without romanticising illness, Hughes challenges professional and lay carers to open their minds and hearts to create what Buber called, “I-Thou” relationships with people diagnosed with dementia, so as to improve the lives of all concerned. He does this on philosophically, ethically, sophisticated grounds as a philosopher, on medically sophisticated grounds as an old age psychiatrist, and on aesthetically sophisticated grounds as a humane, spiritually alive human being. This book will benefit many audiences, including, perhaps most importantly, people with dementia.