Managing Dependence: Assistive Technologies in Dementia Care

Abstract

Conversations about dependency must balance competing concerns too often consolidated into opposing narratives. On the one hand, our cultural premium on autonomy casts dependency as a weakness and a tragedy, if not a moral failing. On the other hand, efforts to resist this dominant narrative reframe dependency as the rule and not the exception. Extending this delicate balancing act to emerging modalities of dementia care poses additional questions. What should we make of apparently increasing levels of dependence on technology, as opposed to on humans? Confronting both the technophobic and technophilic extremes at once––alongside the polarized views of dependency that underlie them––provides us with clearer resources for reformulating narratives about technology in dementia care. What we need is an account of dependence that recognizes its ubiquity and moral significance while also acknowledging that it requires work that is widely devalued and that can exacerbate vulnerabilities.