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Peel et al_NOP_LGBTDementia_postprint.pdf (394.44 kB)

Socio-legal and practice implications of caring for LGBT people with dementia

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journal contribution
posted on 2016-11-25, 10:27 authored by Elizabeth PeelElizabeth Peel, Helen Taylor, Rosie Harding
The needs of LGBT people living with dementia are poorly recognised due, in part, to assumptions that all older people are heterosexual, together with persistent ageist stereotypes that older people are asexual. LGBT older adults are more likely to reside in care homes as a quarter of gay and bisexual men and half of lesbian and bisexual women have children, compared to 90% of heterosexual women and men. Older LGBT people may be unwilling to express their identity within care settings and this can have an impact on their ongoing care. Recognition of the members of an older person’s informal care network is crucial for their ongoing involvement in the life of a person resident in a care setting. However, healthcare professionals may not always appreciate that LGBT people may rely more on their family of choice, or their wider social network, than their family of origin. This article explores socio-legal issues that may be encountered when caring for older LGBT people living with dementia, including enabling autonomy, capacity and applying the legal frameworks in ways which support the identities and relationships of these older people in care.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies

Published in

Nursing Older People

Volume

28

Issue

10

Pages

26 - 30

Citation

PEEL, E., TAYLOR, H. and HARDING, R., 2016. Socio-legal and practice implications of caring for LGBT people with dementia. Nursing Older People, 28 (10), pp. 26 - 30.

Publisher

© RCN Publishing Company Ltd

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-11-01

Publication date

2016

Notes

This article was accepted for publication in the journal, Nursing Older People [© RCN Publishing Company Ltd] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.7748/nop.2016.e852

ISSN

1472-0795

Language

  • en