Conclusion

In this concluding chapter, I bring together the various issues covered throughout the book to argue that a lack of robust critical engagement with the neuropsychiatric biopolitics of dementia lies at their centre. I begin by briefly summarising the story that I have told throughout the book as a whole. This begins with the remarkable rise of dementia research under the influence of the neuropsychiatric biopolitics of dementia and culminates in a contemporary political economy of dementia characterised by evaporating support and proliferating capital accumulation. My overall argument is that a more neurocritical dementia studies – by which I mean a dementia studies that is informed by the core premises of critical gerontology and critical psychiatry ¹ as two fields that have resonant heritages of resisting similar biopolitics, is more robustly engaged with claims relating to ageing and cognition, and is more forthright in pinpointing biopolitical commitments – is uniquely positioned to resist problematic aspects of the neuropsychiatric biopolitics of dementia and reformulate a more salutogenic political economy of dementia.

This may all sound somewhat nebulous and idealistic, so I do two things to tighten it up a little. First, I show how historic responses to dementia, both deliberate and accidental, can offer us some inspiring blueprints for developing a new sociopolitics of dementia. In particular, new epidemiological evidence regarding historic public health developments and their potential long-term implications shows that we might be able to make inroads into the incidence rates of dementia. I also point to historic research movements that developed contextualised psychosocial understandings of dementia and used those understandings to achieve meaningful political transformations for older people experiencing cognitive decline. Second, I attend more closely and pragmatically to the range of things that we can all do right now in pursuit of precisely what I suggest above: resisting problematic aspects of the neuropsychiatric biopolitics of dementia and reformulating a more salutogenic political economy of dementia.