Dementia care is often reduced to the custody of the patient’s comfort and safety due to an overly limited understanding of the achievable quality of life and the relational capabilities of persons living with dementia. This does not appropriately recognize the meaningful agency of persons with dementia, nor does it appreciate the enabling relationships persons can have in an ecology of caring. I offer an approach to dementia care informed by an empirically grounded and theoretical work by philosophers and social scientists, including M. Nussbaum, T. Kitwood, R. Harré, S. Sabat, and J. Hughes. This approach focuses on the enabling effects of the overall ecology of dementia care (social relationality of care providers and the built environment of facilities) rather than on the neurological deficits of the brain and its behavioral limitations.
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