Forget Memory: Creating Better Lives for People with Dementia
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Memory loss can be one of the most terrifying aspects of a diagnosis of dementia. Yet the fear and dread of losing our memory make the experience of the disease worse than it needs to be, according to cultural critic and playwright Anne Davis Basting. She says, Forget memory. Basting emphasizes the importance of activities that focus on the present to improve the lives of persons with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.Based on ten years of practice and research in the field, Basting's study includes specific examples of innovative programs that stimulate growth, humor, and emotional connection; translates into accessible language a wide range of provocative academic works on memory; and addresses how advances in medical research and clinical practice are already pushing radical changes in care for persons with dementia.Bold, optimistic, and innovative, Basting's cultural critique of dementia care offers a vision for how we can change the way we think about and care for people with memory loss.
Preface ixIntroduction: Dementia Is Hard, but It Needn't Be This Hard 1Part 1 Understanding Our Fears About Dementia 71 What Is (and Isn't) Memory? How a Better Understanding of Memory Might Ease Our Fears about Its Loss 132 The Danger of Stories: How Stereotypes and the Stigma of Aging and Dementia Can Hurt Us 25Part 2 The Stories We Tell about Dementia in Popular Culture 313 Memory Loss in the Mainstream: Tightly Told Tragedies of Dementia with Science as Hero 354 Tightly Told Tragedies of Dementia: Then versus Now 405 Not So Tightly Tragic: Stories That Imagine Something More 466 Not Tragic at All: Stories about Memory Loss without the Old 507 All of the Above: Denny Crane as the Clown of Dementia 61Part 3 Moving Through Fear: Stories About Dementia that Inspire Hope 678 StoryCorps and the Memory Loss Initiative 719 Memory Bridge 8010 To Whom I May Concern 8711 Time Slips Creative Storytelling Project 9412 Songwriting Works 10413 Dance: "Respect" and "Sea of Heartbreak" 11114 The Visual Arts 11715 Duplex Planet: The Art of Conversation 12716 The Photography of Wing Young Huie 13417 Autobiographies by People with Dementia 145Conclusion: How and Why to Move through Our Fears about Dementia 155AppendixesA Program Description and Contact Information 169B Recipes from Chapter 1 176C Images and Stories of Dementia 178D Timeline of Stories and Events in the Recent History of Dementia 181Notes 187Index 201
