“Tampering With the Truth”: John Steffler’s The Afterlife of George Cartwright in Dialogue with History

In John Steffler's The Afterlife of George Cartwright, fur trader George Cartwright's journal is revised and amended by former lover Mrs. Selby, who adds her rendition of events in a way that mirrors the novel's treatment of the historical journal. In the supplementation of a document that describes the era of British colonialism in Canada, Steffler provides a postcolonial revisioning of Canada's past, one which is not engendered and written exclusively by British men. The novel's dialogic form criticizes the idea of a universal Canadian experience in the historical journal and, by extension, in Canada's history. But rather than setting up its own version as the final representation, the novel discloses the processes employed by the group in power to establish a version of history that reflects its own interests rather than the truth

Conceptualisation of self-management intervention for people with early stage dementia

Dementia is a major challenge for health and social care services. People living with dementia in the earlier stages experience a "care-gap". Although they may address this gap in care, self-management interventions have not been provided to people with dementia. It is unclear how to conceptualise self-management for this group and few published papers address intervention design. Initial focusing work used a logic mapping approach, interviews with key stakeholders, including people with dementia and their family members. An initial set of self-management targets were identified for potential intervention. Self-management for people living with dementia was conceptualised as covering five targets: (1) relationship with family, (2) maintaining an active lifestyle, (3) psychological wellbeing, (4) techniques to cope with memory changes, and (5) information about dementia. These targets were used to focus literature reviewing to explore an evidence base for the conceptualisation. We discuss the utility of the Corbin and Strauss (Unending work and care: managing chronic illness at home. Jossey-Bass, Oxford, 1988) model of self-management, specifically that self-management for people living with dementia should be conceptualised as emphasising the importance of "everyday life work" (targets 1 and 2) and "biographical work" (target 3), with inclusion of but less emphasis on specific "illness work" (targets 4, 5). We argue that self-management is possible for people with dementia, with a strengths focus and emphasis on quality of life, which can be achieved despite cognitive impairments. Further development and testing of such interventions is required to provide much needed support for people in early stages of dementia