The Self in the Alzheimer's patient as revealed through psycholinguistic-story based analysis

The World Alzheimer Report (2014) stated that 44 million people worldwide suffer from AD. Perhaps the worst effect of the disease is the loss of Self, which is based on the loss of identity and memory (Caddell & Clare, 2010). Research into the initial stages of the disease with the scope of developing some sort of ‘salvage therapy’ is rather scarce. This work reports research done from a psycho-linguistic point of view with the goal of identifying how Alzheimer’s patients maintain the Self through narrative. Self-narrative may be effective in maintaining the Self in AD patients if begun in the preliminary stages of AD . The purpose of this study was to extend knowledge about how subjects with a probable AD diagnosis or in a medium-low phase maintain the continuity of Self. The use of narration with linguistic analysis was used. Various authors have considered the use of narrative therapy (England, 2010; Ramanthan, 1997; Hyman, 2011). The study was conducted on a group of 10 patients /7 females and 3 males) with ages ranging between 67-82 (average=73.70; DS=4.76), a medium-low education level (between 1 and 11 years of education) and a probable diagnosis of AD. Three interviews were conducted including neuropsychological tests. Interviews were recorded, transcribed according to Mergenthaler (1992) and analysed following the GT approach and using the textual analysis software of Atlas.ti. This research showed that the emotional aspects which give continuity to the patients’ Self seem to be well conserved in their implicit memory. The analysis of the beginning phase of the disease and the way in which it progresses seems to be useful in the effort to understand the patient’s psychic reaction to the diagnosis as well as how he or she reorganizes self-representation. It is also useful in observing how the subject’s identity weave or self concept begins to deteriorate. Intervention protocols could be developed as well as a subsequent model to promote psychological health and efficacy of available traditional treatments. More research needs to be done in this area internationally, in order to test the universality of these results.