Dementia diary: a personal and professional journal.
This article is not traditional social work writing, because it is in the form of a memoir. It offers a window into lived experience, from which most professional writing is more distant. It explores the last year of life of an elderly woman, seen through the eyes of her daughter-in-law, who is a social worker and social work educator. The article chronicles the day-to-day experiences of progressive memory loss and the challenges of caregiving. Social work can develop similar narratives of other life experiences that can increase its practitioners' understanding and wisdom.
School of Social Work, Simmons College, Boston, MA 02115, USA. carol.swenson@simmons.edu
Carol R
CR
Swenson
D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000451:nursing; D017028:Caregivers; D006801:Humans; D033262:Narration; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D012947:Social Work; D014481:United States