The purpose of this study is to disclose, through phenomenological description, the experiences people with dementia and their families face in the recent social trend of dementia. Narrative for the role of people suffering from dementia and the caregivers were extracted and Analyzed in the “talk of dementia” authored by Dipex-Japan. As a result, there was lack of understanding between those with dementia and their caregivers. There has been a long-term unconscious prejudice from not only families and society against people with dementia, but also from people with dementia themselves. On the other hand, many diverse thoughts and opinions are revealed through those afflicted, their families and outsiders in regards to prejudice.

    Issues surrounding the topic of dementia have long been mainly defined and discussed as being limited to caregiving problems. However, current social movements and public discussions about dementia include the way of life of people with dementia and developing dementia-friendly communities.
    This paper clarifies sociological issues within the transformations mentioned above in the following three ways. First, I review how the phenomenon of dementia has been socially understood and treated using the concept of medicalization. Second, through a brief introduction of two empirical studies of caregiving interaction surrounding dementia that I conducted, this paper illustrates the caregiving features under medicalization of dementia and shows the essential difficulties in caregiving practices concerning disease progression of people with dementia. Third, I clarify the difficulty experienced in the field of dementia care that was mentioned above theoretically, referring to the discussion over impairment and disability among scholars with disability, which are the key concepts of disability studies. By undertaking such work, I clarify sociological issues over dementia, especially focusing on the points related to family problem studies.

    This paper clarifies that the behavior regarding their choice of clothes of “gal mamas”, so-called because they like gal fashion, can be regarded as normative but they are marginalized by mothers' groups. The increasing number of fashion magazines for mothers indicates that there is an open choice for mothers with regard to the clothes that they can wear. Nevertheless, “gal mama” fashion is often criticized. Why has the “gal mama” been marginalized because of the clothes she has chosen to wear? To complicate things, the norms for mothers' clothes and the aspect of the image those norms are supposed to project is by no means clear. From articles on formal fashion in magazines for mothers, it is found that mother's normative behavior regarding fashion is for self-expression within what are regarded as appropriate boundaries for a particular setting. However, while “gal mamas” intend to stand out through their individuality, “gal mamas” do differ in appearance from other mothers, and, as a result, their marginality is increased because they express their individuality through a strong appearance. From this finding, even though fashions are diversifying, it can be said that the expectations of mothers in the way they look are powerful at least in places where the emphasis is placed on being a mother. However, it is suggested that even if “gal mamas” do not reflect the appearance of a normative mother, they are not abandoning their duties as a mother. Because their appearance is different from the norms followed by other mothers, their carrying out of their role as mothers is more important for them, and it seems that such pressure is getting stronger. In other words, the pressure of being a mother in appearance and behavior is still powerful, and it is difficult to understand this mechanism, complicated as it is by an accompanying freedom of appearance, such as in clothes and fashion.