Department of Psychology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA.
Nurs Philos. 2011 Oct;12(4):282-92; discussion 293-6. doi: 10.1111/j.1466-769X.2011.00485.x.
This article presents a critique of an article previously featured in Nursing Philosophy (10: 26-33) by Ursula Naue and Thilo Kroll, who suggested that people living with dementia are assigned a negative status upon receipt of a diagnosis, holding the identity of the 'demented other'. Specifically, in this critique, we suggest that unwitting use of the adjective 'demented' to define a person living with the condition is ill-informed and runs a risk of defining people through negative (self-)attributes, which has a deleterious impact upon that person's social and relational personae. Moreover, use of the locution 'demented' reinforces a divide between the 'demented' (them) and the 'healthy others' (us). Social constructionist theory, malignant positioning and viewing people with dementia as semiotic subjects are the philosophical pillars through which we construct the main arguments of the critique. The article concludes with the voice of one of the authors, a younger person with dementia, asking for language in dementia care to be carefully reconsidered and reframed and for the recognition of the diagnosed person's agency in the conduct of their day-to-day lives.
这篇文章对乌苏拉·诺伊（Ursula Naue）和蒂洛·克罗尔（Thilo Kroll）之前在《护理哲学》（Nursing Philosophy）上发表的一篇文章进行了批评，他们认为被诊断患有痴呆症的人会被赋予负面地位，成为“痴呆的他者”。具体来说，在这篇批评文章中，我们认为，无意识地使用形容词“痴呆的”来定义患有这种疾病的人是不明智的，这有可能通过负面（自我）属性来定义人，从而对这个人的社会和人际关系造成有害影响。此外，使用“痴呆的”这一措辞加强了“痴呆的”（他们）和“健康的他人”（我们）之间的隔阂。社会建构主义理论、恶性定位以及将痴呆症患者视为符号主体，是我们构建批评主要论点的哲学支柱。文章最后以一位年轻的痴呆症患者的声音结束，呼吁在痴呆症护理中仔细重新考虑和重新构建语言，并承认被诊断者在日常生活中的代理权。
