Cambridge Studies in Law and Society: Duties to Care: Dementia, Relationality and Law

The world of dementia care can be a difficult one for carers to navigate, posing new challenges at every stage from diagnosis to end of life. In her ground-breaking investigation, rooted in original empirical data, Rosie Harding explores the regulatory and legal dimensions of caring for a person with dementia. By exploring carers' experiences of dementia care, she critiques the limitations of current approaches to health and social care regulation. This socio-legal work is a new contribution to the study of feminist care ethics, relationality, and vulnerability theory. Duties to Care argues that by understanding the relational contexts that shape everyday experiences of regulatory structures, we will better understand where law is operating to support carers, and where it adds to the difficulties they experience. Ultimately, the challenges that dementia poses will be addressed only if we find solutions that take account of the relationality of life, dementia, and law.

1. Introducing Duties to Care; 2. Vulnerability, relationality and the challenge of dementia for law; 3. Carers in law and society; 4. Planning for the future in the early stages of dementia; 5. Navigating life with dementia; 6. Complaints and complaining about health and social care; 7. Death and dying with and of dementia; 8. Carers' emotional, social and material investments; 9. Conclusions: relational duties to care.