Mind Care: The Moral Significance of the Dementia Caregiving Dyad.

Caregiving for persons living with dementia has long been conceived as a series of tasks that sustain the body. Tasks such as these describe the work of caregiving for a person living with dementia, but they do not adequately define the practice of caregiving. The central premise of this essay is that caregiving is body care, but it is also mind care. In this article, we describe how mind care occurs within the caregiving dyad. Utilizing the extended mind thesis developed in the philosophical literature, we characterize the dyad as a kind of mental extension. We then suggest that mental extension may also be related to the support of the self and the moral person. We conclude by highlighting how this theory informs dementia care and policy.