Dementia is an increasingly important issue in policy and practice; yet it receives less research funding than many other areas of ageing, is under-conceptualised, with primarily a psychological or medical approach, and is concerned with care or clinical practice. This timely book seeks to challenge this. It highlights the increasing importance of the study of dementia, challenges our stereotypes, providing more positive associations and gives people with dementia a voice as Jim Mann so eloquently outlines in his foreword. It views people with dementia as active citizens engaged in society and with responsibility and agency in shaping their future. It builds on the work of Tom Kitwood, seeing the person first rather than the ‘dementia sufferer’, and broadens the debate around personhood to incorporate multidimensional, critical and sociopolitical perspectives. The book uses the concept of social citizenship as a guiding framework and challenges the medicalisation and welfarist approach traditionally seen in policy and practice. Consequently the book provides an invaluable source to all professionals and academics wishing to understand and improve the situation of people with dementia.

The book will bring the latest thinking on dementia with implications for policy and practice and will appeal to an increasingly multidisciplinary audience concerned with the quality of dementia care. In line with other books in the series it stresses the importance of a lifecourse approach, seeing people with dementia in the broader context of their lifecourse and their life cycle.