Abstract
At present, it is said that medical treatments and ideas need to be applied to the care of people with
dementia in order to attain optimal dementia care in Japan. The first aim of this paper is to empirically
explore how the care process will be affected by the application of medical treatments and ideas. The
second aim is to argue that the effects should be evaluated on the basis of the first empirical study.
This paper achieves these two purposes through a case study on care practice at a day-service
center for people with pre-senile dementia. On the basis of the qualitative data obtained from participant
observation and interview research, the following three results were obtained:
(1) Diagnosis is important for families of afflicted people to recognize their deviant behavior as
the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia. However, families are reluctant to consider the
medical model proposed through diagnosis as their everyday guide to living with the afflicted person.
They also refuse to access care services because some believe that the public admission of one' s
spouse' s as "a person with dementia" means that one will also acquire dementia.
(2) The day-service center has to consider their denial and develop an appropriate approach to care.
The use of advanced medical knowledge as an ideology at day-service centers is effective at creating the
impression that the activity at day-care centers delays the progression of dementia.
(3) However, the difficulty associated with the strategy of applying medical knowledge to care
practices is the issue of the inclusion of people with severe dementia. Our next study will investigate
both the good and bad aspects of applying medical ideas and treatments to dementia care. Accordingly,
we need to compare various cases in which care is given to people with dementia
