Well-being and Multisensory Engagement in Dementia: an Embodied and Relational Account

Aging with a transformative illness such as dementia is – due to a progress of cognitive and sensory losses – often referenced and symbolized as “the social death”. Such a predominantly cognitive view posits a challenge to those affected and to those who care for people with dementia. In contrast to this disruptive view, an embodied and relational account of dementia stresses levels of the pre-reflective and relational self that allow for engaging with the world and attuning to the other through various bodily senses. By referring to case studies of multisensory engagement (e.g. Validation, Snoezelen) I show how states of well-being can emerge by turning to someone’s affective identity through body memory, interbodily resonance and therapeutic atmospheres, thereby constituting a synaesthetic responsivity. I argue that multisensory engagement contributes to participatory bodily sense-making and well-being within situations of existential crisis, providing possibilities for the “disoriented” self in dementia.