title: The aesthetic approach to people with dementia.
abstract: The question I wish to consider is: how do we approach people with dementia? I want to suggest that the approach we take should be the aesthetic one. I shall need to say what this is. My question is not an empirical one. I am not asking how weactuallyapproach people with dementia. My question has an ethical bent to it: howoughtwe to approach people with dementia? In asking this question, however, I am not after an explanation suggesting we should act with kindness, compassion, honesty, integrity and so forth. We ought to do all these things, of course, and I hope such virtues will flow from the account I shall give. But I am really after something somewhat deeper, a philosophical understanding of what it is to be a person with dementia and, consequently, how we ought to stand as human beings in relation to this person.
authors.affiliation: Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle University, UK Email: julian.hughes@ncl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Julian C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Hughes
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D003704:Dementia / Q000523:psychology; D004954:Esthetics; D004645:Empathy; D000368:Aged