Dementia as Zeitgeist: Social problem construction and the role of a contemporary distraction

Abstract

The global impact of dementia on social, political, economic, and health systems is of contemporary concern. As the world’s population ages, differentially, across countries in the Global North and Global South, dementia research and care have become embedded in primary mandates for action within the agendas of governments and health research and service organisations. Using notions of social problem construction and sociologies of legitimacy, this article seeks to explore dementia as Zeitgeist that has captured imaginations but as such is contingent and therefore precarious building an edifice that may be limited and may occlude dangers for people living with dementia. This article argues for an applied sociological approach that recognises precarity and seeks to embed a sustainable praxis-focused axiology at macro, meso, and micro levels in respect of approaches to dementia.