Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Family, Life Course, and Society Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Selected Works

Medicine and Health

Early stage dementia

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Family, Life Course, and Society

Maintaining Friendships In Early Stage Dementia: Factors To Consider, Phyllis Harris Dec 2011

Maintaining Friendships In Early Stage Dementia: Factors To Consider, Phyllis Harris

Phyllis Braudy Harris

Friendships and the importance of social connectiveness play a critical role in aging well, regardless of gender, race, social class, or impairment. Yet, dementia takes its toll on social relationships, and many friends withdraw and ‘disappear’, because they can no longer bear to see the changes that are taking place in their diagnosed friend. The dementia care literature documents this abandonment; however, this study examines the opposite occurrence. In order to understand more clearly the role of long-term friendships and how such friendships remain and continue, despite the diagnosis of dementia, this qualitative study examines in depth eight people in …


People With Early Stage Alzheimer's Disease As Mentors: Developing A Truly Collaborative Research Process, Phyllis Harris Dec 2006

People With Early Stage Alzheimer's Disease As Mentors: Developing A Truly Collaborative Research Process, Phyllis Harris

Phyllis Braudy Harris

Mentoring can take many shapes and forms. However, rarely in the research arena is the participant of a study ever considered as being a mentor, a person capable of providing advice and guidance, and certainly not a participant who has a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Because of the progressive debilitating nature of the condition and the resulting stigmatization and marginalization of the person, someone with AD is not often thought of in the role of a mentor. Yet, this article focuses on such a mentoring relationship, which developed by happenstance, in the process of doing research on and with …