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What Dementia Teaches Us About Love
What Dementia Teaches Us About Love
hardback | English
Published:
4 April, 2019
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Description
Dementia is an unmaking, a de-creation - an apocalypse of meaning. Since my father's slow-motion dying, and his actual death in November 2014, I have been much preoccupied with dementia: by those who have it, by those who look after them, by the hospital wards whose beds are occupied by those in advanced stages of this self-loss, by the way society denies it, by the science of it, the art and literature about it, the philosophy, by what it means to be human, to have an identity. What is it to be oneself, and what is it to lose one's self. Who are we when we are not ourselves, and where do we go?
This is a book about dementia - not a personal account, but an exploration, structured around this radically-slowed death. Full of people's stories, both sad and optimistic, it is a journey into the dusk and then the darkness - and then out on to the other side, where, once someone is dead, a life can be seen whole again.
More Details
| Type | Book |
|---|---|
| ISBN13 | 9780241347454 |
| ISBN10 | 0241347459 |
| Number Of Pages | 272 |
| Item Weight | 380 g |
| Product Dimensions | 145 x 30 x 222 mm |
| Publisher / Reseller | Allen Lane |
| Format | hardback |
Media Reviews
Essential reading about love, life and care -- Kate Mosse * author of Labyrinth *
Nobody has written on dementia as well as Nicci Gerrard in this new book. Kind, knowing and infinitely useful -- Andrew Marr
Gerrard ranges widely and wisely, raising questions about what it is to be human and facing truths too deep for tears * Blake Morrison, poet and author of And When Did You Last See Your Father? *
This is a tender, lyrical, profound, urgent book . . . Gerrard has penned a treatise on what it is to be human -- Yasmin Alibhai-Brown * columnist and author *
Evocative and powerful, shining a light on a world which is often hidden and misunderstood * Jane Cummings, Chief Nursing Officer for England *
Gerrard writes beautifully, encyclopaedically and with humanity -- Nicholas Timmins * senior fellow at the Institute for Government and the King's Fund, honorary fellow of Royal College of Physicians, author of Five Giants *
Nicci Gerrard exudes understanding of the breadth, scale and complexity of the dementias and the challenges they pose for society. Yet she communicates simply, personally and practically as if speaking individually to each of us -- Sebastian Crutch * Professor of Neuropsychology, Dementia Research Centre, University College London *
Nicci Gerrard writes with power, insight, empathy and extraordinary beauty about the world of dementia . . . and demonstrates how we can address the fear, despair and ignorance that has accompanied its spread -- Paul Webster * editor of the Observer *
GoodReads Reviews
Author's Bio
Nicci Gerrard is a writer and campaigner, a celebrated novelist and recipient of the 2016 Orwell Prize for Journalism 'Exposing Britain's Social Evils'. This work grew out of her father's death from dementia in 2014 and her belief that the disease, its impact on individuals, families and wider society, needed light thrown upon it in order to improve the experience and support of those affected.
Nicci Gerrard is also co-founder of John's Campaign, named after her father, which has campaigned to give the rights of carers of those with dementia the same rights as parents of children to accompany them in hospital. Recognised by NHS policy makers, by charities, by nurses and doctors and carers, every ward in every hospital has now signed up.