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Creating the Truth with Persons Living with Advanced Dementia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2021

Abstract

Truth telling to persons living with dementia is a nuanced problem that demands negotiating between the hazards of principlism and the loving deceiver’s demand to lie as needed. To ban deception, as we do restraints, would be misguided and cruel. So too to demand we always tell the truth. We ought to adopt a practice called “creative care.” It begins with the premise that person’s living with dementia are capable of creativity. Creative care breaks down the mysterious fourth wall we build around persons living with dementia, especially persons with advanced dementia. It invites us to see a person living with dementia as a person who is capable of creating something beautiful. They need our time and words, not our lies and sedatives.

Type
Independent Articles: Commentary
Copyright
© 2021 The Author(s)

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References

Dresser, R., “A Tangled Web: Deception in Everyday Dementia Care,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 49, no. 2 (2021): 257-262.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Basting, A., Creative Care: A Revolutionary Approach to Dementia and Elder Care (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2021).Google Scholar