History and the Challenges of Dementia

Much has been written about the biological, clinical, and epidemiological aspects of dementia. Dire, sometimes apocalyptic social and policy issues have been identified and discussed, and scores of books have been published explaining all of this to a popular audience and providing practical advice for patients and their families. But the vast professional and popular discourse on dementia has largely been ahistorical and uncritical. This essay argues that history can be the basis of a more critically informed discussion of dementia by showing that attitudes and ideas often taken to be natural and inevitable are, in fact, historically contingent, shaped by specific social and cultural circumstances. History can renew a sense of possibility by pointing out that things were not always as they are now, and that they might well be different in the future.