I don’t Know… I Really Cannot… My Head is so, so Very Weak – On Changes in the Discourse of Patients with Dementia in Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

The paper presents the issues of description as a form of oral utterance in Alzheimer’s patients. The research procedure was oriented towards the significant tendency in some patients for pointing unambiguously to one’s own incompetence, inability to satisfy the requirements connected
with constructing an utterance (according to the notions that the subject has in this respect). The empirical material comprises utterances in the form of description – speech samples collected in individual testing of 120 patients with mild and moderate stages of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease.

Depending on the type of description (here: descriptions of persons, description of interiors, description of situations) the problem occurred in 39-47 percent of the subjects, and was one of the most frequent undesirable behaviors in terms of the macrostructure of the description. In some subjects it was behavior with heightened intensity, which can make it a distinguishing characteristic of their discourse. The analyzed behaviors make it possible to identify persons with dementia as interaction participants trying to cope with problems with utterance production and at the same time - at least partially – sensing their limitations, signaling them to their interlocutors, and seeking understanding; an incompetent speaker gives him/herself the right not to hide his/her difficulties.