Seniors Who Can’t Google Are Extinct Anyway... O. Aging, Dementia and Caregiving in Art

With the increasing life expectancy without a significant increase in health quality, the number of seniors in the population requiring special care due to incapacity following neurodegenerative diseases and the demands on home and institutional care for these persons are increasing as well. What was once an individual family concern has become a major societal challenge. The implications of this issue and the experience of families caring for a senior patient have recently been increasingly reflected in the arts. In this paper, the focus is primarily on recent works of fiction and film from the Czech context (Urban: Dr. Alz, Vlasáková: Těla, Slavík: Tancuj Matyldo); other culturally related works are referred to for comparison. In the enquiry, social contexts and subjects that the artworks represent are examined; we distinguish between those focused on the patient and those tracking the changes in the family, whether they remain in the private sphere or include aspects of institutional care, whether they use the perspective of the patient or the caregiver; and what effects these practices achieve, i.e., how they can contribute to awareness and reflection of the issue and its social processing.