Dementia, Narrative, and Place: What Can Be Learned from the Age-Friendly Movement?

This essay considers policy narratives of aging and dementia, what they do, and where they lead. It is argued that a renewed policy narrative of dementia is long overdue, and the authors reflect upon the value of drawing on the established age-friendly cities and communities movement to help guide the crafting of this new narrative. The essay develops three points: first, that efforts to promote an age- and latterly dementia-friendly agenda have elided a series of tensions within each program; second, that these tensions often materialize and are perhaps best understood at the point where policy is implemented and “lived out”; and third, that such points of friction provide a useful focus for future dialogue between the hitherto largely parallel and disconnected trajectories of age- and dementia-friendly agendas. Fostering such a dialogue can strengthen an evolving policy critique and ultimately help refine policy-making.