Singling Out: A method of group inclusion for residents living with dementia

This EMCA (Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis) study concerns carers’ multimodal methods for including residents living with dementia in social activities in remote locations. It illustrates how groups of residents are pre-arranged and how the residents are subsequently singled out one by one through requests to come along. Though the request may be the second one, it may be designed as a first request. Subsequently, carers employ multimodal methods to solicit moving and to escort the singled-out residents.

The paper concludes that carers’ methods are employed with a view to difficulties resulting from dementia and to pre-empt confusion in the residents. However, the methods may lead to exclusion. Except for one instance, this is not problematized by the residents. The paper argues that some residents may understand they will be included next or in a while. For other residents, forthcoming activities are not relevant unless extra efforts are made to reintroduce their relevance to them.