Storytelling in dementia: Collaboration and common ground
Door professor Lars-Christer Hydén, Center for Dementia Research, Linköping University, Zweden.
Programma:
Locatie: PSI, room 02.60 (Tiensestraat 102, 3000 Leuven)
Abstract
Stories are told everywhere by everyone: Everyday talk as well as talk at work is full of small conversational stories detailing events and experiences, as well as of longer stories told to friends, family and colleagues. Stories have a central role for persons to present and negotiate their identities. Thus, the ability to take active part in storytelling activities is fundamental to most persons and losing this ability can challenge the social and psychological status of the person.
Dementia is often a long process spread out over many years and the person with dementia changes profoundly in the process: from being a person with just minor functional changes in cognitive and linguistic resources, to a person at the late stages of dementia with very few resources available. As the dementia progresses there are changes in patterns of engagement of the person with dementia in storytelling activities. Some persons with dementia can tell autobiographical stories on their own, while others can do it with support especially from their spouses. Some persons with dementia tell autobiographical stories that leave the listener with a sense of confusion as their stories are often fragmented and repetitive. What is of special interest is the fact that dementia affects the common ground between people, that is, what a person can take for granted that the other knows. Some of the common ground between people consists of their shared experiences and memories.
As dementia affects memory this common ground will be challenged and telling stories and presenting identities will become much more complicated and leading to a change in the relations between the person with dementia and significant others. For the person with dementia, as well as for the significant others, there is a need to deal with this changing common ground as joint storytelling otherwise will become impossible. Thus, it is important to identify ways for persons with dementia to sustain participation in storytelling and hence to keep identity and social status. In the presentation, different strategies used by participants in storytelling will be presented, but also a theoretical framework that will allow an understanding of storytelling in dementia.
