Dressing Disrupted: Negotiating Care Through the Materiality of Dress in the Context of Dementia

Abstract

This paper explores how the materiality of dress mediates and shapes practices of care in the context of dementia. Earlier research called for an approach to conceptualising care that recognised the role played by everyday artefacts. We extend this to a consideration of dress and dressing the body in relation to people with dementia that involves the direct manipulation of material objects, as well as the materiality of bodies. The paper draws on an ESRC funded study Dementia and Dress, which examined experiences of dress for people with dementia, families and care-workers using ethnographic and qualitative methods. Our analysis explores the process of dressing the body, the physicality of guiding and manipulating bodies into clothing, dealing with fabrics and bodies which 'act back' and are resistant to the process of dressing. We consider how the materiality of clothing can constrain or enable practices of care, exploring tensions between garments that support ease of dressing and those that sustain identity. Examining negotiations around dress also reveals tensions between competing 'logics' of care (Mol 2008).

(In)visible materialities in the context of dementia care

“…). In contrast, a number of scholars explore how materialities facilitate collective life in dementia care wards and support relations, identities, collaborations and interactions (Buse and Twigg 2014b, , Hydén , Majlesi and Ekström , Moser ). Rather than focusing on particular objects these scholars are concerned with how several materialities in everyday activities allow individuals with dementia to participate.…”

“…For instance, Moser () describes how the adjustment of objects may enable someone with advanced dementia to eat, emphasising meals as important moments for healthcare professionals to build relationships with people with dementia. Similarly, Buse and Twigg () draw attention to how dressing routines provide opportunities to spend time with residents who have dementia, and they also suggest that clothing and dress can support identity. Other studies are focused on collaboration and describe how particular material arrangements facilitate caregivers and individuals with dementia to cook or bake together (Hydén , Majlesi and Ekström ).…”

“…Hydén () argues that it is possible for healthcare professionals to learn how utilise materialities so that persons with dementia can be involved as collaborators. Comparably, Buse & Twigg (,b, ) call for care institutions to recognise the importance of dress when caring for individuals with dementia and they underline that this would require education and guidance for staff concerning dress practices. Thus, both Hydén () and Buse and Twigg (,b, ) propose that healthcare professionals should be given training to better account for the role of materialities in various care situations.…”

The Political Matters: Exploring material feminist theories for understanding the political in health, inequalities and nursing

“…These phenomena are emergent in the sense of never being finalized or fixed, always becoming, being produced, being resisted, being shaped by and in relation to the entangled nature of the biopsychosocial‐material contexts of health care. So rather than vulnerability being an essentialist attribute or subjective disposition of a self or individual, vulnerability becomes an emergent relationally generated phenomena, the result of sets of socio‐material relations in contexts that are culturally and historically specific; it is these assemblages or relations to materials, for example, in clothing or dressing for staff caring for those living with dementia, that need to be analysed (Buse & Twigg, ).…”

The place of therapy: between lab and field in the psychoanalytic office

“…) that facilitate practices centered on health and illness in diverse settings. Whether in museums and botanical gardens (Mangione ), residential homes (Lovatt ) or planned (Jones ) and actual hospitals (Bell ), these scholars have shown how objects previously overlooked – chairs in a waiting room (Bell ) or clothing (Buse and Twigg ) – can shed light on the moments when care is given, received, withheld, negotiated and shared. Taken together, these works persuasively demonstrate that ignoring materiality and place would give us only a partial understanding of healthcare work (see also, Martin et al .…”