Poetry Written from the Words of People Given a Diagnosis of Dementia: A Narrative Analysis

Narrative
-
based research in dementia is limited. Theorists emphasise certain aspects
as core features of ‘analysable’
narratives that are not reliably present in narratives of
people diagnosed with dementia (e.g., temporality). This study, underpinned by social
constructionist epistemology, demonstrates that attending to such narratives provides
valuable understandings.
Some narratives evidenced speakers’ lack of agency over
their own experiences, appearing to coincide with constructions of low self
-
esteem,
hopelessness, or being positioned by others into identities contradictory to speakers’
Self
-
constructs. Yet other na
rratives demonstrated that, through acknowledgement
and support of ‘personhood’, speakers retained a sense of control and purpose in their
social worlds

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by CRC Press in Constructing Narratives of Continuity and Change: A transdisciplinary approach to researching lives on 05/12/2016, available online: http://www.crcpress.com/9781138291003.