Dikes and Dementia: How Multiple Framings of Dementia Coexist During the Development of a National Dementia Strategy

Abstract

Currently, national dementia strategies are being developed worldwide. Since multiple approaches to dementia coexist, strategies to address dementia as a nation are not straightforward. Cuijpers provides a reconstruction and analysis of which framings of dementia are articulated in the course of development of a Dutch dementia strategy, and how stakeholders deal with the coexistence of multiple framings of dementia. The chapter delineates three models of coexistence: a model where different frames are considered ‘fragments of a whole’; one where they are in antagonistic positions; and a model where different frames move in different directions. The process of constructing a national dementia strategy and the surrounding discussions take different shapes, depending on the assumed model of how approaches to dementia coexist.