The concept of person‐centeredness has become in many instances the standard of health care that humanises services and ensures that the patient/client is at the centre of care delivery. Rejecting a purely biomedical explanation of dementia that led to a loss of self, personhood in dementia could be maintained through social interaction and communication. In this article, we use the insights of queer theory to contribute to our current understanding of the care of those with dementia. We critically discuss the (...) concepts of person and personhood that have become the cornerstone values of person‐centred care for persons with dementia (PWD). Some critics, using queer theory as a theoretical approach, contend that person‐centred care often (unwittingly) reproduces heteronormative roles in trying to sustain life histories. In doing so, they argue, regendering of PWD is sometimes enforced by care providers who try to safeguard this biographical continuity. Cultural theorist Linn Sandberg also mentions that other axes of domination such as race and class are not conceptualised in person‐centeredness approaches, and neither are power asymmetries. Thus, in our article, we revisit the concept of person‐centred care as a first step in proposing another way to think about ‘beings with dementia’ (to avoid the term person). Believing that queer theorists have fallen short in questioning the idea of person or personhood as such, we will build on and broaden Sandberg's critique by demonstrating that queer and crip theory can be understood as a fundamental critique of the (Western) subject and processes of subjectivation. We argue that dementia can be conceptualised as a radical break not only with gendered roles and embodiments, but with many of the norms that make us recognisable subjects. Conceptualising dementia in this way turns it into what Sandberg called an ‘emancipatory space’ and not merely a pathology. (shrink)

This study explores the experiences of nurses that provide ‘complex’, generalist healthcare in hospital settings. Complex care is described as care for patients experiencing acute issues additional to multimorbidity, ageing or psychosocial complexity. Nurses are the largest professional group of frontline healthcare workers and patients experiencing chronic conditions are overrepresented in acute care settings. Research exploring nurses’ experiences of hospital‐based complex care is limited, however. This study aims to add to what is known currently. Four ‘complex care’ nurses undertook in‐depth (...) semistructured interviews and their narratives were analysed using the conceptual framework of complex adaptive phenomenology. Two overarching themes constituting the ‘essence’ of complex care nursing were identified: Contextual factors and attribute/value‐based elements. Creating meaningful patient outcomes and feeling part of a team were experienced as fulfilling, whereas time constraints, institutional settings and systemic barriers to comprehensive caregiving diminished the experience of providing complex care. Overall, work meaning presented as a dynamic phenomenon, shaped by personal and professional values, local settings and systemic factors. It is recommended that more expansive research be undertaken to explore the experience of complex care for nurses. Such knowledge can contribute to initiatives that draw a skilled, effective and engaged hospital‐based complex care nursing workforce. (shrink)

Despite the promise to save every life, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed social and racial inequalities, precarious living conditions, and engendered an exponential increase in overdose deaths. Although some lives are considered sacred, others are deliberately sacrificed. This article draws on the theoretical work of Foucault and scholars who further developed his concept of biopolitics. While biopolitics aims to ameliorate the health of populations, Foucault never systematically accounted for the unequal value of lives. In the name of saving the biological (...) lives of people who use drugs (PWUD) during the pandemic, the harm reduction movement has emphasized the need for safe supply, decriminalization, and housing; governments have started implementing these measures, which were previously rejected as utopian and unrealistic. Paradoxically, the use of drugs itself, and therefore the increased risk of death from overdose or other medical sequelae, is the only way PWUD can achieve enough visibility to be recognized as a life worth saving. The humanitarian rationale of harm reduction concerns itself with the biological life and stipulates social and political rights in the name of its sacredness. This is what anthropologist Fassin and others called biolegitimacy—the recognition of life reduced to its physiological, biological essence. (shrink)