Sitting Down: Embodied Directives

In Chapter 3 we argued that in advanced dementia spoken languagespoken language becomes what we called, de-centered. Support and communicationcommunication can no longer be organized primarily around the use of spoken languagespoken language. This means that as the person living with dementia becomes more challenged in using and understanding spoken languagespoken language, communication and supportsupport must necessarily rely on other communicative resourcescommunicative resources, sometimes as a support and sometimes as an alternative. One such resource is the human body and its ability to form for instance gesturesgesture that might help to direct attention, and its ability to mimicmimic actions and thus guide through these embodied actions.