'React and Go with it': Interviewing Persons with Alzheimer's Disease about their Friendships

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Brandi M. McCullough (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Rebecca Adams

Abstract: This study accessed the firsthand perspectives of persons with Alzheimer's in order to report their friendship patterns with cognitively intact friends. I expected to find a gradual breakdown of respondents' networks and negative processes to characterize their friendships. The initial goal was to interview 15 Caucasian women in the early-stages of Alzheimer's about a friendship with a good friend. It was difficult to recruit the target sample size because of the ambiguities of the diagnostic process combined with the protection of the population. The final sample size was four with the findings supporting the idea that both personalities and previous patterns of relating carry into the disease experience. Alzheimer's disease is not always associated with a friendship network breakdown. Persons with Alzheimer's can still remain engaged in fulfilling friendships following their diagnosis that do not have to be characterized by negative processes. This population can also successfully inform research by participating in interviews. This study provided two outcomes, with the methodological one focusing on how to sample the population and the substantive one examining the originally intended topic of the friendships of persons with Alzheimer's.

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Language: English
Date: 2008
Keywords
Friendships, persons with Alzheimer's, firsthand accounts
Subjects
Alzheimer's disease $x Patients.
Alzheimer's disease $x Patients $x Interviews.
Alzheimer's disease $x Social aspects.

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