Beyond loss: An essay about presence and sparkling moments based on observations from life coexisting with a person living with dementia

Author:

Damsgaard Janne B.1ORCID,Lauritzen Jette12ORCID,Delmar Charlotte1ORCID,Kvande Monica E.3ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Department of Public Health, Nursing Aarhus University Aarhus Denmark

2. VIA University College Aarhus Denmark

3. Lovisenberg Diaconal University College Oslo Norway

Abstract

AbstractThis is an essay based on a story with observations, about present and sparkling moments from everyday life coexisting with a mother living with dementia. The story is used to begin philosophical underpinnings reflecting on ‘how it could be otherwise’. Dementia deploys brutal existential experiences such as cognitive deterioration, decline in mental functioning and often hurtful social judgements. The person living with dementia goes through transformation and changes of self. Cognitive decline progressively disrupts the foundations upon which social connectedness is built, often creating a profound sense of insecurity. The challenge for carers and healthcare professionals is therefore to find ways of clarifying a concept of agency. It will be worthwhile developing the ability of attuning into ‘what is there’ arising from every corner of the care situation. Understanding and practicing this can strengthen existence and the experience of connectedness and meaning, empowering the person with dementia. It is important to find ways, relational moves, in which carers and healthcare professionals can embed the creativity appearing in mundane everyday situations filled with surplus of meaning, sharing mental landscapes (and embodied relational understanding) with the person living with dementia – seizing and sharing aesthetic moments (verbal and nonverbal) being present together. We argue that carers and healthcare professionals may find this understanding of care useful. This implies looking into a phenomenological‐hermeneutic perspective developing competences as well as practical wisdom understanding and being aware of the creative and innovative possibilities (often preverbal and unnoticed small things) in everyday life of what we, inspired by psychoanalyst Daniel Stern, call sparkling moments of meeting, creating experience with the other that is personally undergone and lived through in the present.

Publisher

Wiley

Subject

General Medicine,Issues, ethics and legal aspects,Research and Theory

Cited by 2 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

1. Redefining Entrepreneurship: Philosophical Insights in a Post-individualist Era;The Journal of Entrepreneurship;2024-05

2. Berørt og bevæget: At navigere livets opgaver med empati. En ikke guide;Sygeplejevidenskab.dk – Journal of Nursing Research & Professional Knowledge;2024-03-14

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