A GLOBAL APPROACH :::: ATTENDING SUBJECTIVITY

In 2050, 115 million of people could be affected by Alzheimer's Disease

A GLOBAL APPROACH ON ALZHEIMER IS NEEDED

Next year, 35,6 millions of people will suffer Alzheimer. According with Daisy Acosta, Alzheimer's Disease International's president, Goverments and Health Systems arround the wold must face up to social, medical and economic issues related to this disease.
But, from my point of view, they should be in mind not only these macro-dimensions but the people who make up these dimensions as well (micro-dimension). I mean, people affected by AD (person, family, caregivers...) should be approached in a global way by researchers and all those who are involved in understanding this reality.

- The cause of the disease,
- How the life style of the person living with AD was before the diagnosis and how it is after,
- How he/she feels (physically and psychologically) in a pervious and a mild stage,
- How the person interact with others and with his/her environment
- How his/her memory is but also how the person is able to do and to feel at present (the real abilities in the right moment)
- What the caregivers and family need and feel
- How they should be interact with people with AD

We should have in mind all the dimensions of the people affected by AD, in order to understand the needs of all them or even in order to contribute modestly to know why AD is developed and in this way to be able to prevent it.

SUBJECTIVITY REFLECTION::::TAKING ADVICE FROM A PERSON WITH ALZHEIMER

PASQUAL MARAGALL INTERVIEW
(La Vanguardia, 20th October 2009)

¿Pero cree que a la investigación del alzhéimer le hace falta una revolución conceptual, que por el camino marcado no se avanza lo suficiente?
Ya hace cien años que se conoce el alzhéimer, y como no hay mal que cien año dure, ya toca que llegue un gran avance. Si se fija, las personas que tenemos alzhéimer nos refugiamos mucho en refranes, como no hay mal que cien años dure, podemos olvidar dónde hemos dejado las llaves, pero no olvidamos las poesías, las canciones, los refranes… Esto se nos queda en el hipocampo, aquí en el cerebro subiendo a mano izquierda.

Por su experiencia personal, ¿qué consejos daría a una persona que se enfrenta a un diagnóstico de alzhéimer?
Le diría que no deje de hacer cosas. Que disfrute. Que no lo convierta en una tragedia porque no lo es, pero acaba siéndolo si uno se empeña. Que se lo tome con humor. Que se interese por los demás. Y que se ejercite, tanto físicamente como mentalmente. Yo, personalmente, casi cada martes juego a ping pong. Camino mucho. Hago sudokus, y los acabo. Y psicológicamente me ha ocurrido una cosa curiosa.

¿Qué le ha ocurrido?
Me he convertido en un enfermo de la captura de imágenes. Capturo el momento con la cámara del móvil y puedo guardarlo. O enviarlo y compartirlo. Es un entretenimiento fantástico. Pero no creo que tenga que ver con el alzhéimer. Esta afición por los gadgets me viene de hace mucho tiempo.

Y a los familiares de una persona con alzhéimer, ¿qué consejos les daría?
Que no sean sobreprotectores, que dejen un grado de libertad. Sufren, le protegen en exceso y, sin querer, le perjudican. La familia debe ayudar al paciente a ser tan autónomo como pueda.

To read the complete interview click here
You can translate this post on the bottom of this weblog

WITHOUT MEMORY, IS THERE NOTHING OR IS THERE EVERYTHING? LIFE IS FOR LIVING

Alzheimer Person Reflection

HIS WORDS... It's full of these things... it's not good to just sit there and do nothing, because... well... it's going down... yeah... it's terrible all that...ohh forget it! (laughters)... life is for living

From my point of view, living with this condition brings you to enjoy the present, the now... We must reinforce this aspect when communicate with people with AD. We should talk with and listen to people with Alzheimer because they can teach us a lot about what living means. Why traveling back or foreward all time? Why not enjoy what we are and we have at present? We are not just memory, but subjective human beings that need memory to survive daily, to communicate with others... but we are still able of being ourselves, of enjoying life in spite of not having past memories... the person is still here, his subjectivity.

Let's learn about Alzheimer and humanity from another approach!

To watch the clip click here
Again... thanks Lucas!

PRAGMATIC IMPAIRMENT IN FRONTO-TEMPORAL DEMENTIA

Conversational Practices of a Frontotemporal Dementia Patient and His Interlocutors

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a dementia difficult to diagnose because, in the early stages, it leaves patients with intact cognitive functioning and a range of social deficits. For example, FTD causes changes in tactfulness and manners, violations of interpersonal space, and emotional appropriateness (Jagust, Reed, Seab, Kramer, & Budinger, 1989). Until recently (for exceptions see Mates, Mikesell, & Smith, in press) these characterizations have come from (a) brief clinical interviews and observations from neuropsychological testing and (b) caregivers' secondhand reports. Given the social nature of FTD, research is needed to examine the ordinary interactions of FTD patients, ones not colored by caregivers' memories or constrained by the structure of a clinic. Using conversation analysis, this article explores two common conversational practices of one patient, SD. This research shows that while SD's practices may appear appropriate in single, isolated turns, they are often inappropriate in more extended sequences. SD can respond locally to individual turns, that is, he can display local understanding, but he often misunderstands the aims of the sequence, often failing to demonstrate understanding. SD, for instance, shows difficulty understanding the interlocutor's goal of open-ended first pair-parts (FPPs) (eg., wh-questions). As such, SD's interlocutors design their talk to adapt to his incompetencies by constraining their FPPs. These constraints are in an attempt to elicit a more appropriate response from SD and enable him to produce a more appropriate response incrementally, turn-by-turn.

Lisa Mikesell

Affiliation:

Department of Applied Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles

Research on Language & Social Interaction, Volume 42, Issue 2 April 2009 , pages 135 - 162

TALK: HUMAN COGNITION AND LANGUAGE LOSS IN ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

ALZHEIMER DISCOURSE TALK

DISCOURSE STUDIES GROUP (GED), University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain)

I+D Project: Epistemic Strategies in discourse: interaction and communication

Speaker:

Dr. Fernanda da Cruz
(Universidade Federal de São Paulo)

Theoric and Epistemologic questions about the research on
human cognition and language loss

Date:
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 19h
Location:
UPF, Roc Boronat 138 (Metro: Glòries) Communication-Poblenou Campus, Room: 52.327

Contact: julia@discursos.org

Alzheimer's Association: list of warning signs for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias

The warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease

How to understand the difference between typical age-related changes in memory and those derived from Alzheimer’s disease.

click here

DEMENTIA AND IDENTITY

The Stubborn Myth of Identity

Dementia, Memory, and the Narrative Unconscious

Mark Freeman, Ph.D., Professor, Psychology, College of the Holy Cross

AUDIO CLIP

In a lecture delivered in December of 2008 at a conference on memory at Emory University, psychology professor Mark Freeman talks about how his mother's identity has changed as a result of her dementia. In the context of narratives, and how they work to create identity, Freeman discusses his mother's struggle to understand who she is, where she is, and why she is there.

To read more about this click here