Autobiographical Accounts of Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease: Obituaries of the Living Dead?

• Main Author: Stanley, Daina
• Other Authors: Vanthuyne, Karine
• Language: en
• Published: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa 2013
• Subjects: Early-onset Alzheimer's disease; self; medical anthropology; biomedicine; illness narratives; autobiography; sense of self; narrated self
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10393/30173; http://dx.doi.org/10.20381/ruor-3369

The thesis was designed to gain insight into how Alzheimer’s disease influences selfhood from first-personal accounts of illness. The focus of the study was narrowed further by concentrating on the autobiographies of individuals diagnosed with Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease (EOAD). The purpose of this thesis was to analyze the autobiographies of individuals with EOAD with the aim of understanding their selfhood. In this thesis I argue that, Alzheimer’s disease may influence a change in self, however, the self is not lost entirely. This thesis draws on the philosophical conception of narrated self as it allows for one perpetually constructed self, whereby a change in self does not necessarily mean the self is lost entirely. Through an interpretive analysis of six autobiographical accounts of Alzheimer’s, this thesis demonstrates that Alzheimer’s disease influences a loss of sense of self but that autobiography enables individuals with Alzheimer’s to (re)construct self.