The legislative and political contexts surrounding dementia care in India
Currently there is no specific policy on dementia care in India. Rather, the responsibility for care for people with dementia is not clearly articulated and formal care services straddle mental health and aged care. The result is that much care is placed upon individual families. This paper critical...
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| Format: | Journal Article |
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Cambridge University Press
2008
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/28278 |
| _version_ | 1848752492927516672 |
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| author | Brijnath, Bianca |
| author_facet | Brijnath, Bianca |
| author_sort | Brijnath, Bianca |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Currently there is no specific policy on dementia care in India. Rather, the responsibility for care for people with dementia is not clearly articulated and formal care services straddle mental health and aged care. The result is that much care is placed upon individual families. This paper critically reviews Indian legislative and policy documents on this field of care, namely, the Mental Health Act 1987, the National Mental Health Programme, the National Policy on Older Persons and the Senior Citizen's Act 2007. The invisibility of dementia care in public policy translates into the absence of adequate treatment facilities and mental health staff, and leaves informal care-giving unsupported. This gap is replicated in mental health and dementia-care research and literature in India, with little being known about how family carers respond to the experiences of care-giving, manage the stigma, and access support. As India, like other middle-income and low-income countries, is experiencing an increase in its older population, more research is needed to develop the epidemiological, medical and anthropological understanding of ageing, dementia and care. This knowledge is vital to understanding the cultural context of the disease and must also be incorporated into public health policy if there is to be effective management of the rising need for personal care. © 2008 Cambridge University Press. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T08:09:29Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-28278 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T08:09:29Z |
| publishDate | 2008 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-282782017-09-13T15:22:16Z The legislative and political contexts surrounding dementia care in India Brijnath, Bianca Currently there is no specific policy on dementia care in India. Rather, the responsibility for care for people with dementia is not clearly articulated and formal care services straddle mental health and aged care. The result is that much care is placed upon individual families. This paper critically reviews Indian legislative and policy documents on this field of care, namely, the Mental Health Act 1987, the National Mental Health Programme, the National Policy on Older Persons and the Senior Citizen's Act 2007. The invisibility of dementia care in public policy translates into the absence of adequate treatment facilities and mental health staff, and leaves informal care-giving unsupported. This gap is replicated in mental health and dementia-care research and literature in India, with little being known about how family carers respond to the experiences of care-giving, manage the stigma, and access support. As India, like other middle-income and low-income countries, is experiencing an increase in its older population, more research is needed to develop the epidemiological, medical and anthropological understanding of ageing, dementia and care. This knowledge is vital to understanding the cultural context of the disease and must also be incorporated into public health policy if there is to be effective management of the rising need for personal care. © 2008 Cambridge University Press. 2008 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/28278 10.1017/S0144686X08007368 Cambridge University Press restricted |
| spellingShingle | Brijnath, Bianca The legislative and political contexts surrounding dementia care in India |
| title | The legislative and political contexts surrounding dementia care in India |
| title_full | The legislative and political contexts surrounding dementia care in India |
| title_fullStr | The legislative and political contexts surrounding dementia care in India |
| title_full_unstemmed | The legislative and political contexts surrounding dementia care in India |
| title_short | The legislative and political contexts surrounding dementia care in India |
| title_sort | legislative and political contexts surrounding dementia care in india |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/28278 |