Quand la personne âgée atteinte de démence est un être capable

Abstract

Based on contemporary social theories, including the theories of care, this article sketches a sociology of care, the terrain of which is constituted by an ethnography conducted in five long-term care institutions that host elderly people suffering from dementia. Driven by the ideal of autonomy, these institutions have adopted a psychogeriatric intervention method based on the Montessori method of education that promotes a new « form of coordination » in the care relationship. This form, « doing with », presupposes that the caregiver and the cared-for are active subjects of the relationship, which becomes symmetrical while the two partners in co-presence interact with more or less equal intensity. « Doing with » coexists with three other forms of « taking care », in which the acting of the caregiver and the acting of the person being cared for differ in intensity : « doing without », « making do » and « doing for ». Locating the « doing with » within these other forms of « taking care » will give us the opportunity to recompose the moral territory in which it stands and to consider the care relationship according to the degrees of autonomy it distributes and arranges.

Keywords

• autonomy
• care relationship
• dementia disorders
• long-term care institutions
• forms of « taking care »
• elderly people