Rethinking Dementia Care: Person Centered Care and Roles of Family Caregivers

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17H07019
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Sociology
• Research Institution: Osaka City University
• Principal Investigator: KINOSHITA Shu 大阪市立大学, 大学院文学研究科, 研究員 (00805533)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-08-25 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 医療社会学 / 認知症 / 家族介護

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The purpose of this study is to examine how the social norm of dementia care changed in Japan. Japan is now said to be in "the new century of dementia care". For example, the government established long-term public care insurance in 2000 and created the “New Orange Plan” in 2015 to develop a model for supporting dementia patients and family caregivers. These policies are supported by medical discourses. In Japan, the person-centered care paradigm was gradually accepted between the 1980s and 2000s; many caregivers now respect it. Maintaining each patient’s personhood is regarded as the prime task of caregiving by many medical and healthcare professionals. But how was such a social norm was established has never been studied so far.
The findings are two folds. First, the way of respecting the patient has been changed since 1970's to 2000's. Second, the problem was whether to consider the patient as having emotion and intention until the end of life.

Free Research Field

社会学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の意義を、二つの点から説明する。第一に、介護家族の経験と、彼らを支えた先進的団体の記録を体系的に収集・分析した点。本研究は、1970年代から90年代を、日本における認知症ケアの理念の転換期と位置づけ、その間の介護家族の経験を新たに聞き取り、散逸していた資料を収集した。第二に、それらのデータから、認知症ケアの理念の転換を理解する上で、重要な論点を発見した点。具体的には、「患者の尊重のあり方の変化」「看取りケアという争点の浮上」「介護者たちは患者をいかなる存在とみなしているか」という三つが挙げられる。
今回の成果は、認知症ケアの理念がさらなる転換を迎える現在、実践的な意義も持つものと考える。