Explores the historical, psychological, and philosophical implications of dementia. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this book employs a cross-cultural perspective and focuses on questions of age, mind, voice, self, loss, temporality, memory, and affect.

Contents

Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1

Part One
1 Dementia-Near-Death and "Life Itself" 23
2 The Borderlands of Primary Care 43
3 Negotiating the Moral Status of Trouble 64
4 Diagnosing Dementia 80
5 The Biomedical  Deconstruction of Senility and the Persistent Stigmatization of Old Age in the United States 106

Part Two
6 Generic Susceptibility and Alzheimer's Disease 123

Part Three
7 Coherence without Facticity in Dementia 157
8 Creative Storytelling and Self-Expression among People with Dementia 180
9 Embodies Selfhood 195
10 Normality and Difference 218
11Divided Gazes 240
12 Being a Good Rojin 269

Contributions 289
Index 291