The Social Death Phenomenon

Typically, when a person passes away, their loss is then processed by those who survive them, so their biological death is followed by social death. However, more often than not, people who have been diagnosed with dementia experience social death before they pass away. This can be characterized by others behaving as though they have already died, speaking about them as if they are already gone, or believing that they might as well not be there.

Sweeting & Gilhooly (1997) examined this phenomenon in people diagnosed with dementia, who fall into all three groups of those who usually experience social death before biological death: they have a chronic deadly illness, are (usually) elderly, and lose aspects of their personhood. By interviewing one hundred relatives of people with dementia, they discovered that about one-third either held beliefs or exhibited behaviors that signified their relative with dementia was perceived as socially dead, but it did not mean that relatives always behaved as though the person were dead.

It is important to recognize that there can be a tendency to think of a loved one with dementia as already being gone. That way, it is possible to change, reframe, and redirect those thoughts to more honoring, respectful, and dignified ways of treating and talking about those diagnosed with dementia.

Access this article: Dementia and the phenomenon of social death.