The French Alzheimer's Association Drops Plans for Video

Marcel Brasey recently emailed to tell me about a video called “Fortunately” that the French Alzheimer’s Association planned to air on television and on their web site.  The video seems to show people with very advanced dementia in dire situations.

A woman urinates in the grocery store, another stares blankly into the camera with blood running down her face, a man eats dog food, etc.  Dark music plays in the background.  At the end, the words on the screen say “Fortunately, they won’t remember.”

Danny George has written on the Myth of Alzheimer’s blog about how degrading and dehumanizing this video is.  It’s not uncommon - I found similar videos from Alzheimer’s South Africa and Alzheimer Nederland on the web.  But I can’t imagine a similar video portraying the most horrifying aspects of advanced cancer or kidney disease.  For some reason, we still stigmatize dementia more than other health conditions.

Marcel was one of many who signed an online petition asking the French Alzheimer’s Association to drop the video.  Their efforts were successful.  A good next step would be to focus more on the strengths and dignity of people with dementia.  Why not a video showing how people like Marcel lead meaningful lives despite cognitive challenges?

Comments

[Danny George]

Good post Mona - thanks for commenting on this. I completely agree with your last point about showing a more humane and nuanced portrayal of persons with dementia. I'm reminded of a great William Blake quote: "To generalize is to be an idiot". Not to be to harsh, but by those standards, the video is quite idiotic! A new story most definitely needs to be told, and hopefully it's beginning to happen around the world.
best,
Danny

[hautkrebs]

Superb post I must say.
I completely agree with your last point about showing a more humane and nuanced portrayal of persons with dementia.

[Size 14 shoes]

This video is really touchy. I had watched it as before also. But it's just same feeling watch it every time. And you explained it so well in your post.