ABSTRACT
The questions we ask about dementia care and practice flow from how we view, value and understand dementia. If we see dementia as an illness with a precise aetiology we will build evidence in a way that this focussed within an illness paradigm. If we see dementia as a condition and social problem, it will lead us to different broader research questions about the condition and associated social problems. If we see dementia as an experience we will foreground approaches bounded by our views of what constitutes experience and the assumptions we make when interpreting data which make public the personal experiences of people with dementia in a moment or over a defined period of time. It is therefore critical that we recognise the dynamic interrelationship between changing dementia discourses and the different ways of knowing and understanding dementia and the emergence of applied knowledge. This chapter briefly explores the nature of applied knowledge and evidence-based assumptions within practice. Consideration is given to the cycle of evidence generation and evidence application, and the tensions that are situated within the reality of everyday practice.
