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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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'Oh he was forgettable'
— construction of self identity through use of communicative coping behaviors in the discourse of persons with cognitive impairment | | Author(s) | Pamela A Saunders, Kate de Medeiros, Ashley Bartell |
| Journal title | Dementia: the international journal of social research and practice, vol 10, no 3, August 2011 |
| Pages | pp 341-359 |
| Source | http://dem.sagepub.com/ |
| Keywords | Cognitive impairment ; Dementia ; Communication ; Doctors ; Communication difficulties ; Self esteem. |
| Annotation | Communication involving persons with cognitive impairment (CI) associated memory issues requires particular attention in the clinical setting due to the sensitive and often difficult institutional work that must take place between the patient and his or her physician. An individual with CI is often tested for memory issues during the office visit, generating a potentially face-threatening situation. The patient may attempt to preserve positive identity or `save face' by using communicative coping behaviours (CCBs). This study characterizes the use of CCBs (e.g., accounts and humour) by persons with CI in clinical interviews and provides important insight on how to improve doctor-patient communication involving people with CI. In order to describe and compare CCBs used by persons with cognitive impairment, and those used by cognitively normal individuals, verbatim, in-office transcripts from both groups were analysed. Results showed that participants with CI used more memory accounts than cognitively normal individuals and similar amounts of humour in order to save face and construct a normal identity. These data may help to inform doctors and caregivers regarding the ways in which persons with CI construct and preserve a positive sense of self-identity through communication. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-111003016 A |
| Classmark | E4: EA: U: QT2: EC: DPA |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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