Rethinking Communication guide to advanced dementia

24 This stage of dementia has even been referred to starkly as a “social death” by researchers Helen Sweeting and Mary Gilhooly. 2 They have pointed out that this is part of how we inadvertently end up dehumanising people with dementia. Social death occurs as a result of people in the surrounding environment regarding the person with dementia as socially inept, unworthy and effectively dead in respect to participation in the social world. 2 H Sweeting & M Gilhooly (1997) Dementia and the phenomenon of social death . Sociology of Health & Illness, 19, 93-117