‘My Needs Change with the Others": Therapeutic Pathways and Dementia in Old Age

Legislation on old age is strongly associated with the indications of international organisations. The concept of Active Ageing (now renamed Healthy Ageing) of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has permeated policies and programmes for the older population. In this sense, various types of ageing have been excluded, homogenising this stage. This paper seeks to problematise old age that is accompanied by cognitive impairment. Dementia is one of the major causes of dependency in old age and affects both the person who suffers from it and his or her family environment. The Latin American region, and Argentina in particular, is characterised by scarce data on dementia.
How is the process of caring for an elderly person suffering from dementia carried out? Due to the persistence of a family-oriented culture, the general assumption is that the therapeutic itineraries and care practices of people with chronic neurodegenerative diseases remain ‘behind closed doors’ in the private sphere and those who have historically been catalogued as responsible for care: the women in the families.
The aim of this study is to investigate the characteristics of the therapeutic itineraries of elderly people who are dependent due to a mental illness from the perspective of their families as the main caregivers in the city of Buenos Aires. The design is exploratory and qualitative, based on primary sources (in-depth, semi-structured interviews) and secondary sources (analysis of health policies, statistics on illnesses, number of institutions offering care services).