Not Wanting to Lose the Dignity of Risk: On Living Alone with Dementia

Of the more than 47 million people living with Alzheimer's disease or other types of dementia, an estimated one-third live alone. This essay explores the idea of the dignity of risk as it presents in the lives of people living alone with dementia, an underrepresented group in research, and considers the tension between safeguarding people with dementia from risks associated with disease progression and denying them the experience of risk as an aspect of everyday life. For individuals, risk is associated with vulnerability, choice, uncertainty, and the pursuit of goals, and may hold positive and negative connotations. This essay considers how myriad choices in the everyday lives of people living alone with dementia present some degree of risk, and how the ability to make these choices may constitute a life of dignity, replete with meaning and richness. The essay concludes with suggestions about how to reframe living alone with dementia as a way of living that can be better socially supported.