Physical Activity and Dementia: Tai Chi as Narrative Care

Abstract

Tai Chi is a form of physical activity. The most common image or stereotype of Tai Chi is that it is practiced by older adults, in a park, usually early in the morning. Improved balance and fall prevention are increasingly recognised as effective outcomes of Tai Chi practice. However, this chapter expands the use of Tai Chi to consider it as a form of narrative care with dementia survivors. As Phoenix (2011: 112) points out: ‘If meaning-making is inseparable from storytelling, and if storytelling is always connected to the body, making sense of the physical changes brought about by the ageing process calls for new and different stories to be told’. The present discussion will proceed in three steps. First, I will consider the background to narrative care and how it relates to narrative gerontology. Then I will discuss the art of Tai Chi as it applies in this context. Finally I will consider the specifics of Tai Chi as narrative care with dementia survivors. The traditional and dominant medical model views physical activity from a competence and performance perspective and thereby often has very limited expectations from this group. In contrast, Tai Chi as narrative care makes explicit the assumption that dementia survivors are persons with a story, moreover, a story that is still open to new meaning. This second approach has significant implications in the context of physical activity in later life.