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Carers' narratives: Finding dementia with Lewy bodies experiences
Author(s) -
Nicholson Kathryn A
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
australasian journal on ageing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.63
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1741-6612
pISSN - 1440-6381
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-6612.2009.00370.x
Subject(s) - narrative , dementia , appeal , dementia with lewy bodies , perspective (graphical) , relevance (law) , disease , population , psychology , medicine , political science , pathology , literature , art , environmental health , law , visual arts
Carers' narratives provide a unique insight into the caring experience. From a human interest perspective they have appeal to the general population; however, they also target and are read by niche audiences – families striving to understand the challenges of the caring role. This article examines four carer narratives and their relevance to particular niche audiences; three classified from the information provided on their book covers as pertaining to Alzheimer's disease and one to Parkinson's disease. It explores the impact of care on the caregivers and reviews the promoted diagnoses in light of the current understanding of dementia with Lewy bodies. The author argues that the information provided in the titles, in good faith, may not reflect the content of the narratives and that three of these narratives may provide carers of people who have dementia with Lewy bodies with insights into the challenges that this disease presents.