What is "Rementia"?
“Rementia” is a term the late Tom Kitwood coined in the 1980s when his focus was on the origins of dementia.
During this time medical views regarding dementia dominated, but there were those who argued that the biomedical approach, what Kitwood termed, “the technical frame” or the “standard paradigm” was limited, and that one’s personal evolution, and the social environment also needed to be considered. Kitwood believed that only by examining personal and social influences could an adequate understanding of dementias be established and the possibility, as expressed by Kitwood (1989) for a reversal of neuropathological symptoms, that is, “rementia”. For Kitwood it was important to engage in more rehabilitating approaches, what he called ‘positive person work’ where a person living with dementia could regain some of his or her abilities that were seemingly lost (Kitwood & Bredin 1992). Part of this included how people living with dementias could be treated in negative ways, which actually made the condition worse.
< Back to FAQs