Discourses of work life in narrative identities of people with advanced dementia

There is no consensus as to whether people with advanced dementia can create a narrative identity. It is most often thought to be disturbed due to autobiographical memory disorders. In this paper, we examined how people with advanced dementia constructed their narrative identities in relation to their professional experience.

This qualitative study used data obtained from 8 semi-structured interviews. The interviewees were people with advanced dementia aged between 66 and 89 years. We analyzed the dataset based on the textual-oriented discourse analysis.

The study participants created narrative identities. Their narrative identities were constructed within residual professional discourses learned during their lifespan. These discourses blended their narrative identities into coherent stories about who they are now, offered languages to describe current experiences, and emphasized important values for their self-image. The participants built narrative identities by referring to the past and imagining a better present with the omission of the future. The past was valued positively and was a source of positive nostalgia. Projections of a better present served to reveal their needs and assess ways to meet them.

We argue that people with advanced dementia can create complex and coherent narrative identities. They are constructed around discourses and not only using autobiographical memories. Encouraging them to create narrative identities in the dialogue can be a simple therapeutic method by which they can maintain a sense of self-cohesion and belonging to the world.