Re the article Ventriloquism Helps Memory in the AARP Bulletin – I’m thankful that AARP is profiling positive engagements with people with dementia. But they simply must find a new language to do it. People with Alzheimer’s are MORE than “patients.” And the old trope of “second childhood” is just offensive.
I do hope AARP continues covering this important issue — which will only grow in relevance to people of every age. But the framework and language must change.
Ventrioloquism
December 27, 2011 by Anne Basting
One Response
Hello, and A Men. AARP is as an organization still holding fast to last century attitudes and language. They too have failed to responsibiy take an active leadership role in the issues associated with the disabilities of dementia, especially in older folks.
They too have bought into the National Alzheimer’s Associations attempts to redefine and relabel the public health care crisis created by dementia as an Alzheimer’s Disease crisis that can be solved by spending more money to find a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease.
All the National organizations that I know of still see us as patients, as fading away human beings, as sufferers. Those who have the connections and resocurces to change the Nation’s understanding of folks living with the disabilities of dementia each and all seem to have their own list of priorities, and each and of them do not seem to have improving the quality of life of those with the symptoms of dementia, leading a National effort to undue the harm the stigmas associated with dementia impose on caregivers and their loved one.
Richard