I know of no references but I would think the question first of all is how one defines the concept of "illness" as against "impairment" given that an impairment can be acquired through a variety of processes.
Dementia is not my area, I have to deal with a rusty hippocampus (and Henry Weston's Cider) that is all, but as far as I am aware, there are many routes to the status of "dementia" from ischaemia to specific degenerative processes in the structure of the brain itself, not forgetting injury or poisoning.
Dementia in any case is not so much a status as a process or a deviance from some functional norm of neurological performance. Dementia can indeed be temporary, induced by some organic imbalance, such as an acute inflammation, which would example I think would fall within the model of "illness" There are other forms of dementia which are iatrogenic, the result of multiple, little understood reactions between a number of medications, which an older person is statistically and culturally more likely to be exposed to .
Again there is the mind/body problem that only seems to trouble philosophers and me, that is to say the relationship between a negative change in the ability to orientate and generally put the bits that belong to you in there proper place to perform normative performances, such as eating dinner, playing a musical instrument, typing or whatever that are unrelated to cognitive impairment. However sometimes these performative malfunctions can be the earlier signs of a more general neurological disarrangement that is indicative of a more general "dementia"
The word "dementia" itself is etymogically and culturally connotative in that it refers to a process in the direction of the arrow of entropy of decline from an assumed perfect state, but is that true? In order to "de" "ment" one has to "ment" in the first place, and I am not going to quote melancholy Jaques here, you can google the stages for yourself, but it is clearly an old concept of trajectory in life. When was one ever in ones Prime, miss Jean Brodie notwithstanding?
Whatever, in terms of disability there is an expected performativity and whenever you fall foul of that then you are dis enabled, I would think a historical perspective a long view on notions of dementia would not come amiss, what is different or not about the notion of an elder "demented" individual in the cultural framework of the now and here and in literature and case study.
Larry
-----Original Message-----
From: The Disability-Research Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Elisabeth Storrs
Sent: 30 May 2014 16:09
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: illness/disability
Dear Listers,
I am wanting to explore the conceptual and actual (embodied) differences between long-term life limiting illnesses and disability and apply it to people living with dementia. Any suitable references and or search terms welcome. Thank you.
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