Managing Images of Occupational Self in Early Stage Dementia

A Life-World of Altering Meaning: Expressions of the Illness Experience of Dementia in Everyday Life over 3 Years

The aim of this study was to describe the illness experiences of two participants with dementia, as expressed in their everyday lives during 3 years of disease progression. Data were collected at intervals by participant observations and conversational interviews and analyzed via a phenomenological and interpretive method. The findings describe an illness experience characterized by an altering meaning of the concretely present life-world for the participants. This was exhibited by an increasingly existential meaning of the objects and tasks of everyday life, while the perception of the life-world as taken for granted seemed to gradually decrease. Furthermore, participants experienced being threatened by a lack of order and control and uniquely responded to these experiences. Living with the changes and the threat seemed to imply insecurity and doubtful hope, diminishing social contacts, and increasing dependency, but the meaning of the consequences differed between participants. On the basis of the presented structure of the phenomena, a possible way of understanding the illness experience and its meaning in progressively dementing diseases in the occupations of everyday life was exemplified and suggested from a phenomenological point of view.

Incorporating or Resisting Assistive Devices: Different Approaches to Achieving a Desired Occupational Self-Image

The purpose of this study was to enhance the understanding of how people with disabilities experience the meaning of their assistive devices in their occupations and how they act on their experiences. Seventeen participants were interviewed and data were analyzed using a qualitative approach. The participants' experiences showed that they reacted differently to the manifold and often contradictory meaning of assistive devices. The analysts organized the participants' reactions into three categories: pragmatic users, ambivalent users, and reluctant users. The differences between the participants were understood as representing different adaptive approaches to achieve desired occupational self-images. Thus, the assistive devices were not in themselves important, but were merely a means to achieve a desired self-image. The findings reflect that the participants' experiences of using assistive devices reveal meanings about their use that go beyond the traditional medical perspective that focuses on the role of assistive devices as compensation for physical impairment.

How can we get access to the experiences of people with dementia?

This paper suggests and discusses a methodological approach that aims to facilitate the inclusion of people with dementia in research where the ambition is to better understand their experiences. People with dementia have commonly not been included as informants in research as their cognitive deficits have been regarded as a hindrance. Moreover, in the qualitative research tradition, most inquiries rely on data obtained from interviews, thereby requiring communication and verbal skills, which are skills that are affected early in the cause of dementia. Consequently, the considerably under-researched area of how dementia is experienced and managed from the perspective of those afflicted has long been put aside. This paper suggests that a combination of qualitative observations and adapted interviews may make it possible for people with dementia to participate as research informants. Issues concerned with creating a relationship with informants with dementia and helping them to elicit their experiences are elaborated and discussed. Some suggestions are made concerning how the context can be used for this intent, and how the observations and interviews can be adapted to the informants with dementia.

The use of everyday technology by people with dementia living alone: mapping out the difficulties

While the technological development available to society is taking quantum leaps, we have little knowledge of how people with mild dementia manage to cope with familiar technology at home, such as television and electronic household machines, or new technology, such as remote controls, cell phones and computers. As this technology represents a potential problem area, the aim of this qualitative, exploratory study was to identify and characterize difficulties with and hindrances to using everyday technology, as they appeared in data, for persons with early stage dementia. Eight participants with dementia were included in an extensive data collection consisting of repeated interviews and observations made in the home; the data were analyzed adopting a constant comparative approach. The results exhibit a taxonomy of difficulties in four domains, encompassing conditions that interfere with the use of the technology, deficiencies in knowledge and in the communication between users and their technology, and limitations in the use of instructions. Typically, difficulties appeared in complex combinations. They arose when familiar technology was being used, and not only when new technology was to be used. This raised concerns about the need these people have for support in home and in society. Further research is needed to validate the findings.

Living with early-stage dementia: a review of qualitative studies

AIM

This paper presents a literature review whose aim was to provide better understanding of living with early-stage dementia.

BACKGROUND

Even in the early stages, dementia may challenge quality of life. Research on early-stage dementia is mainly in the domain of biomedical aetiology and pathology, providing little understanding of what it means to live with dementia. Knowledge of the lived experience of having dementia is important in order to focus pro-active care towards enhancing quality of life. Qualitative research is fundamentally well suited to obtaining an insider's view of living with early-stage dementia.

METHOD

We performed a meta-synthesis of qualitative research findings. We searched MEDLINE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO and reviewed the papers cited in the references of pertinent articles, the references cited in a recently published book on the subjective experience of dementia, one thesis, and the journal Dementia. Thirty-three pertinent articles were identified, representing 28 separate studies and 21 different research samples. Findings were coded, grouped, compared and integrated.

FINDINGS

Living with dementia is described from the stage a person discovers the memory impairment, through the stage of being diagnosed with dementia, to that of the person's attempts to integrate the impairment into everyday life. Memory loss often threatens perceptions of security, autonomy and being a meaningful member of society. At early stages of memory loss, individuals use self-protecting and self-adjusting strategies to deal with perceived changes and threats. However, the memory impairment itself may make it difficult for an individual to deal with these changes, thereby causing frustration, uncertainty and fear.

CONCLUSIONS

Our analysis supports the integration of proactive care into the diagnostic process, because even early-stage dementia may challenge quality of life. Moreover, this care should actively involve both the individual with dementia and their family so that both parties can adjust positively to living with dementia.

Telephone use among noninstitutionalized persons with dementia living alone: mapping out difficulties and response strategies

The aim of this study was to map out and describe difficulties and response strategies in telephone use among elderly, noninstitutionalized persons with dementia living alone. To obtain explorative data, interviews and observations in the homes were undertaken with 10 participants diagnosed with dementia. The participants were observed when showing their telephones, calling a well-known number, responding to a request previously sent by letter to make a telephone call, and finding a number in the telephone directories. The data were analysed using a comparative approach, and resulted in descriptive categories. The participants' difficulties were categorized as difficulty in 'knowing what', 'knowing where', 'knowing how' and overcoming motor, perceptual, verbal and environmental obstacles. In responding to these, they used a variety of environmentally related strategies such as using perception or habits and habitual places, verbalizing aloud, seeking help from others, and adjusting the physical environment. They also used a few cognitively related strategies such as repeating and stopping and reflecting. Overall, difficulties were frequent and common, and the effectiveness of the strategies was questionable. The results indicate that it might be unrealistic to assume that elderly persons with symptoms of dementia who live alone are able to satisfactorily use the telephone for safety, communication and participation in society.

Temporary confusion: a fearful experience

Older people admitted to hospital often develop acute temporary confusion. Earlier studies have focused on problems in providing care to the confused, causes of the confusion and the key aspects of caring. The aims of this study were to describe, from a nursing perspective, how older people experienced the phenomenon of temporary confusion and to describe the older peoples' reasoning when they described their experiences. Interviews with five older informants who had recovered from their confusional state were conducted and analysed using the phenomenological method. Two phenomena were studied, 'being temporarily confused' and 'reasoning about experiences of temporary confusion', each was found to be represented by four inter-related constituents. The phenomena can be understood as aspects of suffering and power imbalance between staff and older people.