Abstract
This article presents data arising from a project that explored 22 children and young people’s experiences of having a parent with dementia. A key theme from the interviews highlighted the implications dementia has for the relationship between children and their parents – specifically, how individuals ‘do’ and display family when their parent’s personality and capacity to function as previously has been undermined. The data illustrate how these young people experience disruptions to existing family practices, and how they perpetuate a relationship with their parent in the face of dementia. It also indicates that these changes in practices – the disruption and acquired significance – contribute to children’s reconceptualisation of their relationship with their parent. This article seeks to add to the literature on family practices (Morgan, 2011) and display (Finch, 2007) by using the experience of dementia to illustrate the importance of family practices when a family experiences ‘crisis’.
Highlights
Changes in life expectancy, medical knowledge and diagnostic procedures mean more dementia diagnoses, with figures anticipated to double from 850,000 in 2014 to 2,092,945 in 2051 (Alzheimer’s Society, 2015).The incidence of dementia increases from 1 in 100 in those aged 65–69, and rises to 1 in 6 for within those over 80
A key theme from the interviews highlighted the implications dementia has for the relationship between children and their parents – how individuals ‘do’ and display family when their parent’s personality and capacity to function as previously has been undermined.The data illustrate how these young people experience disruptions to existing family practices, and how they perpetuate a relationship with their parent in the face of dementia
This article seeks to add to the literature on family practices (Morgan, 2011) and display (Finch, 2007) by using the experience of dementia to illustrate the importance of family practices when a family experiences ‘crisis’
Summary
Medical knowledge and diagnostic procedures mean more dementia diagnoses, with figures anticipated to double from 850,000 in 2014 to 2,092,945 in 2051 (Alzheimer’s Society, 2015).The incidence of dementia increases from 1 in 100 in those aged 65–69, and rises to 1 in 6 for within those over 80. Dementia affects cognitive skills, has physical manifestations and has an impact on an individual’s personality, including social withdrawal, lack of empathy, increased temper and loss of interests (NHS, 2015), experienced long before a definitive diagnosis is reached Such symptoms, coupled with caring needs and altered family roles, mean that dementia has significant implications for familial relationships.This article outlines our findings to consider some of these implications, beginning with a definition of ‘family’. The social sciences have witnessed a narrative, biographical or auto/biographical ‘turn’ (Riessman, 2008), among researchers concerned with social justice issues seeking to give voice to hidden and ‘silenced lives’ (McLaughlin andTierney, 1993; Goodson and Sikes, 2001; Plummer, 2001) Such approaches were appropriate given that we sought to explore the experiences of young people who are in a minority, whose experiences violate the normal order of life events, and who are affected by a stigmatising (Goffman, 1963) and identity-spoiling condition (Werner et al, 2010). These accounts suggest how children and young people‘reconceptualise’ their relationship with their parent.These themes will be explored
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