Holding out for hope: discourses of dementia and their implications for care on an acute organic assessment and treatment ward
Publication Date
December 5, 2019
Creator
Abstract
The needs of individuals who receive a diagnosis of dementia can be complex, and can pose a challenge to those who care for them. Discourses around the construct of dementia have evolved over time, which has influenced care practices and policies. The way that healthcare professionals construct dementia may have important implications for the care that is provided. This article uses naturally occurring talk from an acute organic assessment and treatment ward to explore how staff construct dementia. A Foucauldian form of discourse analysis was used to analyse talk from fifteen multidisciplinary healthcare professionals. In this article we present a reading of this talk, where dementia is constructed as: an unstable inner state that can fluctuate in severity, an illness that will inevitably progress, and a condition that can take away a person’s insight. Implications for care resulting from these discourses is considered through examining the subject positions that were made available. A final discourse relevant to care practices was identified, where healthcare professionals resisted a dominant medical discourse, which opened up space for hope and innovative care practices.
Item Type
ethesis
Thesis Type
DClinPsy
Supervisors
Subjects (LC)
Associated Schools / Departments
School of Medicine
eprints ID
56625
UoN Repository URI
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Name
RPV 1819 4240566 14497827 Research Project Portfolio Volume I Discourses of Dementia.pdf
Type
Full-text
Description
Examined. Research Project Portfolio Volume I Discourses of Dementia
Size
2.39 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
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