A family living with Alzheimer's disease: The communicative challenges

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Publication date
2015-09-29Author
Jones, Danielle K.Rights
© 2015 The Author. Full-text reproduced in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy.Peer-Reviewed
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Alzheimer’s disease irrevocably challenges a person’s capacity to communicate with others. Earlier research on these challenges focused on the language disorders associated with the condition and situated language deficit solely in the limitations of a person’s cognitive and semantic impairments. This research falls short of gaining insight into the actual interactional experiences of a person with Alzheimer’s and their family. Drawing on a UK data set of 70 telephone calls recorded over a two-and-a-half year period (2006–2008) between one elderly woman affected by Alzheimer’s disease, and her daughter and son-in-law, this paper explores the role which communication (and its degeneration) plays in family relationships. Investigating these interactions, using a conversation analytic approach, reveals that there are clearly communicative difficulties, but closer inspection suggests that they arise due to the contingencies that are generated by the other’s contributions in the interaction. That being so, this paper marks a departure from the traditional focus on language level analysis and the assumption that deficits are intrinsic to the individual with Alzheimer’s, and instead focuses on the collaborative communicative challenges that arise in the interaction itself and which have a profound impact on people’s lives and relationships.Version
Accepted manuscriptCitation
Jones DK (2015) A family living with Alzheimer’s disease: The communicative challenges. Dementia. 14(5): 555-573.Link to Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1177/1471301213502213Type
Articleae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
https://doi.org/10.1177/1471301213502213