Disability Human Rights and Reparations for People with Dementia in Long Term Care Institutions: An Empirical Study

This article argues that reparations are a necessary response to human rights violations experienced by people living with dementia in long term care institutions (LTCI). In these settings, people living with dementia experience a range of human rights violations including institutionalisation, segregation, detention, violence, and neglect. As an important contribution to disability human rights scholarship, the article presents empirical findings from a research project which gathered perspectives on reparations from people living with dementia and their support networks. It reports on six key dynamics facing people living with dementia in LTCI which necessitate reparations: lack of human rights recognition, failure to recognise harm, invalidation of experiences of harm, denial of equal access to justice, absence of accountability, and lack of systemic change. The authors consider the implications of these empirical findings for disability human rights scholarship on access to justice and independent living.