A description of the social construction of dementia among elderly residents of a nursing ward is offered, based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in an Israeli geriatric centre. This account focuses on the construction of positive social identities and the ascription of roles for residents labelled as ‘demented’. The findings illustrate the split between personal and social identity in dementia. The applicability of conventional socio-psychological constructs such as ‘I’ and ‘me’ regarding dementia is questioned, as the spoken manifestations of these constructs is critically examined from a symbolic interactionist perspective.

This article explores a range of issues relating to financial management and elderly people with dementia. The law relating to personal finances for those who lack capacity is outlined and discussed with a stress upon its complexity and the key gaps in present coverage. The article goes on to outline findings from research on these issues carried out within a social services authority in the north of England. Professionals were found to have a wide range of anxieties relating to what they felt was the financial abuse of their elderly clients with dementia, as well as more general concern about how best to deal with financial issues for this group on a day to day basis. The financial abuse of elderly people does occur, but the article concludes by arguing that the issues raised by the research are wider for three main reasons. First, relatives and professionals are often ignorant or confused by the options available to them rather than being intent on defrauding elderly people. Second, the desire to hand down and to receive money from the one generation to the next is a powerful force in society and elderly people with dementia may wish their children rather than the state to have their money. And third, fee assessment and collection for this group raise real practical challenges to social services.

This study aims to measure objectively and/or estimate the needs of impaired elderly persons and their families for social care services. The research was carried out in Maebashi, a medium size Japanese city. In our study, ‘impaired elderly persons’ included both physically and/or mentally impaired persons. In total, 693 impaired elderly persons and their families were classified according to 20 specific types of need: these ‘need types’ were cross-tabulated with two sets of factors: (1) Severity of impairments and (2) Difficulty of caregivers in providing the required care. A standard model of the service provision necessary for each ‘need type’ was established through group consultation with social care service professionals. Finally, the total amount of each service required in the city was calculated. Major findings are: (1) Our estimates indicate that 7.1 per cent of all persons 65 and over residing in Maebashi City were physically and/or mentally impaired to a certain degree. (2) Forty per cent of these elderly people were being cared for by caregivers who themselves had serious difficulties. (3) The demand for social care services in local Japanese cities is high. In order for this demand to be met a substantial expansion of both nursing home care and in-home care services is required.

This paper reviews the empirical literature on social isolation and loneliness and identifies a wide range of published correlates. Using data from a study conducted in North Wales, which included many of the same correlated variables, a statistical modelling technique is used to refine models of isolation and loneliness by controlling for co-variance. The resulting models indicate that the critical factors for isolation are: marital status, network type and social class; and, for loneliness: network type, household composition and health.