Abstract
The family and its relationships are objects of intervention for geriatrics when this medical specialty diagnoses and proceeds to care of dementia. Through an ethnography of medical practices, I observe how the categories of "family insufficiency" and "caregiver burden" are diagnosed as part of the "set" in which geriatrics seeks to intervene. Such diagnoses guide therapeutic decisions in a broad way, changing choices about which drugs to prescribe and in what quantity. Families subject to these diagnoses can receive higher dosages, an experience which may prevent those families from receiving what is understood to be ideal care. I also observe the history of handling this category by a scientific area that is intended to be “biopsychosocial”.
Keywords:
Geriatrics; Dementias; Family; Drugs