The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published How can and should UK society adjust to dementia? This paper aims to stimulate debate about new ways forward in understanding, and ways to meet the needs of the growing number of people living with dementia. The publication explores the application of the social model of disability to dementia. It looks in detail at what this social model is, and where it has come from, bringing together the authors’ interests in disability and ageing, and training in disability studies and health and social geography.