ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the marginalisation that people living with younger onset dementia (YOD) and family members including children, experience in society. Families living with YOD report feelings of invisibility through disengagement and social exclusion and negative societal attitudes also undermine a family’s capacity to support each other. This chapter explains these feelings using the social model of disability as a theoretical framework to underpin the analysis. Socially constructed disablement of the family impacts family relationships, family functioning and family connectedness. Changing societal perceptions and reframing family-centred services specific to dementia can ameliorate this social disablement and improve family functioning.
