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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Dynamics in couples facing early Alzheimer's Disease | | Author(s) | Liz Johnston, Dianne M Terp |
| Journal title | Clinical Gerontologist, vol 38, no 4, July-September 2015 |
| Publisher | Taylor and Francis, July-September 2015 |
| Pages | pp 283-301 |
| Source | http://www.tandfonline.com |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Early ; Preventative medicine ; Attitude ; Spouses ; Personal relationships ; Qualitative Studies ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | This article presents the qualitative results of semi-structured interviews with five established couples where one individual was diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer's disease (AD). The interviews were designed to explore the effects of the initial diagnosis, the felt experience of the disease by both members of the couple, and the resulting impact on the couple's dynamics. The aim of the study was to discover the issues unique to this situation, what successful management strategies these couples may have found, and thus to inform the future provision of couples therapies where AD is present. The primary findings support results found in other recent studies of couples encountering AD with some additional insights. First, the actual diagnosis was very difficult to hear. An unexpected finding in this study was that the way the diagnosis was delivered was often more traumatic than the diagnosis itself. Second, all couples reported challenging issues of increasing dependency and marked changes in the balance of independent action for each partner versus shared responsibilities. In addition, couples shared their individual experiences of anger as a response to unfulfilled performance expectations, both by the AD patient and the well spouse. Lastly, this small study group saw travel, a common activity for older people, as maintaining "couplehood" in addition to its other benefits. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-150918228 A |
| Classmark | EA: 4J: LK2: DP: SN: DS: 3DP: 7T |
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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