Alzheimer Talk, Text and Context: Enhancing Communication

274 Pages·2005·1.36 MB·English

by  Boyd H. Davis (eds.)

Alzheimer Talk, Text and Context
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Alzheimer Talk, Text and
Context
Enhancing Communication
Edited by
Boyd H. Davis
University of North Carolina – Charlotte
Selection and editorial matter © Boyd H. Davis 2005
© in Chapters individual authors 2005
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-3532-8
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
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First published 2005 by
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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
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ISBN 978-0-230-20694-6 ISBN 978-0-230-50202-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-50202-4
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managed and sustained forest sources.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Alzheimer talk, text, and context:enhancing communication/edited by
Boyd H. Davis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Alzheimer’s disease. 2. Communicative disorders. 3. Alzheimer’s
disease—Patients—Rehabilitation. I. Davis, Boyd H.
RC523.A3725 2005
616.8′31—dc22 2004065753
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Notes on the Contributors viii
Introduction: Some Commonalities xi
Part I: Talk and Text 1
1 There was an Old Woman: Maintenance of Identity
by People with Alzheimer’s Dementia 3
Dena Shenk
2 Evidencing Kitwood’s Personhood Strategies: Conversation
as Care in Dementia 18
Ellen Bouchard Ryan, Kerry Byrne, Hendrika Spykerman,
and J.B. Orange
3 Speak to Me, Listen to Me: Ethnic and Gender Variations
in Talk and Potential Consequences in Interactions for
People with Alzheimer’s Disease 37
Charlene Pope and Danielle N. Ripich
4 Talking in the Here and Now: Reference and Politeness
in Alzheimer Conversation 60
Boyd H. Davis and Cynthia Bernstein
5 Carousel Conversation: Aspects of Family Roles and Topic
Shift in Alzheimer’s Talk 87
Jeutonne P. Brewer
6 Alzheimer’s Speakers and Two Languages 102
Guenter M.J. Nold
7 So, You had Two Sisters, Right? Functions for Discourse
Markers in Alzheimer’s Talk 128
Boyd H. Davis
8 Bad Times and Good Times: Lexical Variation over Time
in Robbie Walters’ Speech 146
Margaret Maclagan and Peyton Mason
v
vi Contents
Part II: Text and Context 167
9 Communication Enhancement for Family Caregivers
of Individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease 169
Kerry Byrne and J.B. Orange
10 Writers with Dementia: the Interplay among Reading,
Writing, and Personhood 190
Ellen Bouchard Ryan, Hendrika Spykerman, and Ann P. Anas
11 Simulating Alzheimer’s Discourse for Caregiver Training
in Artificial Intelligence-based Dialogue Systems 199
Nancy Green
12 Understanding Text about Alzheimer’s Dementia 208
Lisa Russell-Pinson and Linda Moore
13 Epilogue: The Prism, the Soliloquy, the Couch, and the
Dance – The Evolving Study of Language and
Alzheimer’s Disease 224
Heidi E. Hamilton
Index 247
Acknowledgments
Friends of UNCC and especially Carol Douglass, for support on developing
the host collection, Charlotte Narrative and Conversation Collection,
online at http://www.newsouthvoices.uncc.edu
John Gretes, Professor of Educational Technology, University of North
Carolina – Charlotte.
Ruth Greene, Chair of Psychology, Johnson C. Smith University, Charlotte,
NC, for obtaining interviews from “Pleasant Homes” in the JCSU
area of Charlotte, NC.
North Carolina Council on the Humanities, for support in organizing
individual and community stories materials for the host collection,
Charlotte Narrative and Conversation Collection.
Larry Watts, Chaplain; Sandra Adcock, Oakbridge Terrace Activities Dir-
ector; and Steve Messer, Director, Plantation Estates, Charlotte, NC.
Stephen Westman, Digital Librarian; Pat Ryckman, Reference Archivist,
and Robin Brabham, Curator, of Special Collections, J. Murrey Atkins
Library, UNC – Charlotte: see http://www.newsouthvoices.uncc.edu
UNCC Faculty Grants Program, for subsidizing work by Boyd Davis,
Linda Moore, and Dena Shenk, 1999–2003.
Chris Collins, Consultant in Old Age Psychiatry, Princess Margaret Hospital,
Christchurch, New Zealand.
Matthew Croucher, Consulting Psychiatrist, Psychiatry Service for the
Elderly, Princess Margaret Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Gina Tillard, Clinical Director, Department of Communication Disorders,
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
vii
Notes on the Contributors
Ann P. Anas is Research Coordinator, Communication and Aging at
McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. For the past ten
years, she has coordinated S.H.A.R.E. (Seniors Helping Advance Research
Excellence), a group of approximately 300 adults, 60 years and older,
who participate in various communication and aging research projects
at McMaster University.
Cynthia Bernstein, Professor of Linguistics, University of Memphis, works
with dialect variation and narrative. She has (co)edited The Text and
Beyond: Essays in Literary Linguistics (1994) and Language Variety in the
South Revisited (1997).
Jeutonne P. Brewer, Associate Professor Emeritus, University of North
Carolina at Greensboro, is a specialist in regional varieties of American
English, with an NPR radio special on the ex-slave narratives. Her recent
work emphasizes analysis from her own collection of recordings of family
members with dementia.
Kerry Byrne is a doctoral candidate in Rehabilitation Sciences at Univer-
sity of Western Ontario, with a particular interest in empirically based
communication enhancement education and training programs for
spousal caregivers of individuals with dementia.
Boyd H. Davis, Cone Professor, Applied Linguistics, University of North
Carolina – Charlotte, studies language change and constrained discourse:
see Dimensions of Language (1994) and Electronic Discourse (1997, with
J.Brewer). Articles keyed to her digital corpora of regional English, including
cognitively impaired speakers, appear in Journal of Aging Studies and
Geriatric Nursing.
Nancy Green, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of
North Carolina at Greensboro, has published articles on her research on
dialogue in journals such as Computational Linguistics and Discourse
Processes. Her current NSF-sponsored project is on use of artificial intel-
ligence to produce patient-tailored information in genetic counseling.
viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
Heidi E. Hamilton, Associate Professor of Linguistics, Georgetown
University, has published Glimmers: A Journey through Alzheimer’s Disease
(2003), and co-edited The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2001). Her
other books include: Language and Communication in Old Age (1999),
and Conversations with an Alzheimer’s Patient: An Interactional Sociolinguistic
Study (1994).
Margaret Maclagan, Associate Professor, Communications Disorders,
University of Canterbury, New Zealand, studies language change over
time, focusing on the pronunciation of New Zealand English (New Zealand
English: Its Origins and Evolution, with Gordon, Campbell, Hay, Sudbury
and Trudgill, 2004) and Maori.
Peyton Mason heads Linguistic Insights, Inc. As an independent scholar
in sociology, he spent twenty years in survey and marketing research,
and currently applies techniques from corpus and text analysis to articles
on oral and electronic focus groups, interviews, and depositions; a recent
article with Davis is in Discourse Technology (Georgetown University
Round Table, 29).
Linda Moore, Associate Professor of Nursing, University of North Carolina –
Charlotte, is a Geriatric Nurse Practitioner interested in critical care in
the elderly. She co-authors Pharmacology for Nursing Care; recent articles
appear in Geriatric Nursing and Critical Care Nursing Clinics of North
America.
Guenter M.J. Nold is Professor and Dean at the University of Dortmund,
in English and American Studies, and is a member of the Scientific
Consortium implementing DESI, the national study of performance-levels
of German students. Currently he compares learning and retention in
bilinguals with communicative and cognitive impairments.
J.B. Orange is Associate Professor in Communication Sciences and
Disorders at the University of Western Ontario. His most recent articles
on discourse, conversation, and pragmatic analyses of persons with
various forms of dementia appear in Brain and Language, Journal of
Neurolinguistics, Journal of Applied Communication Research, Topics in
Language Disorders, and chapters in many books.
Charlene Pope is Assistant Professor in the Medical University of South
Carolina College of Nursing and College of Health Professions. Her