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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Preserving the 'us identity' through marriage commitment while living with early-stage dementia | | Author(s) | Judie C Davies |
| Journal title | Dementia: the international journal of social research and practice, vol 10, no 2, May 2011 |
| Pages | pp 217-234 |
| Source | http://dem.sagepub.com/ |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Married couples ; Spouses as carers ; Family relationships ; Attitude. |
| Annotation | Recognising the impact of marriage commitment on living with early-stage dementia has important implications for developing proactive care for individuals with dementia and their families. This mixed method study of six couples experiencing early-stage Alzheimer's dementia explored how married couples experienced the meaning of commitment through memory loss represented by the transitional process of pre-diagnosis, diagnosis, and post-diagnosis. Narrative analysis was used to identify shared themes from couples' accounts through semi-structured interviews and supported by questionnaires related to commitment and marriage satisfaction. Couples' commitment was expressed by four major themes: `partnership for life', `reciprocity', `resilience', and `forgiveness'. The couples experienced an undisturbed, enduring commitment to their relationship in spite of the diagnosis of dementia. The `us identity' of the couples remained intact. They considered the challenge of dementia to be a collaborative venture - a journey into the unknown. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-111003008 A |
| Classmark | EA: SM: P6:SN: DS:SJ: DP |
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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