Ms Kristina Chelberg1
1ACHLR, QUT, Brisbane, Australia
This paper argues that ‘brain health advice’, a recurrent theme in Australian aged-care discourse, constructs a moral framework of self-responsibility for cognitive health in older age and renders the state of the ageing brain as a signifier of good citizenship. Brain health advice are imperative messages by aged-care stakeholders on how to reduce the risk of cognitive decline and avoid dementia, and take the form of lifestyle recommendations on diet, exercise and ‘brain fitness’ from elite biomedical voices. This argument emerges from preliminary findings of study using discourse analysis to investigate the role of organisational, corporate, and government institutional aged-care stakeholders in the construction of dementia. The study’s sample is composed of public online documents of key stakeholders in the Australian aged-care sector, including aged-care providers, advocacy groups and member associations. These findings reveal brain health advice messages by aged-care stakeholders promote a biomedical conception of dementia as preventable (or at least able to be delayed) in a ‘successful’ older age. Taken together, brain health advice forms a moral framework to self-manage the ageing brain through the performance of ‘brainwork practices’. Key themes in the discourse are shown to construct a matrix of brainwork practices that serve as acts of self-governance by responsible citizens within cultures of successful ageing. In a hyper-cognitive society that conceptualises dementia as a personal, social and economic threat, brain health advice messages are normative instruction on how to manage the ageing brain and contribute to constructions of dementia as ‘failed’ ageing.
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