Geriatrics and humanism: Dementia and fallacies of care

Based on fieldwork in a specialized geriatric outpatient clinic in Brazil, this article shows how a humanistic discourse that 'means well' can do good, but can also produce a regime of care that ultimately results in care that is contrary to stated values. These values - such as holistic care, multidisciplinarity, and empathy - that have been at the heart of geriatrics since its more official founding in the 1940s and 1950s, cannot be conceived as only local. The Brazilian data mirrors international geriatric values and norms, which, however, are being applied here in a specific context, in a country perceived as 'young' and with limited resources for elder care. Fallacies of care in this context result preliminary from a translation of more structural factors as individualized (self-)care and from the abstraction and generalization of aging individuals as 'older people'.