Aging & Social Change: Tenth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

Current dementia research is characterized by a shift from cure to prevention (Leibing 2014; Schicktanz 2017). To prevent or delay cognitive decline, health campaigns and research efforts focus on presymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease (AD) detection and early intervention as well as on preventive lifestyle measures as physical and cognitive activity or a healthy diet. In this paper I discuss the German medical and public discourses on dementia prevention in context of the medicalization and activation of old age. Based on a discourse analysis of clinical dementia guidelines, medical and nursing science articles, self-help literature and daily newspapers, I analyze which notions of aging, perceptions of health and disease, and attributions of responsibility can be found in the debates on dementia prevention. I show how the public and special discourses on dementia prevention are shaped by activity theory, medicalization of cognitive aging, responsibilization, and individualization of risks.