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  3. "Like He's a Kid": Relationality, Family Caregiving, and Alzheimer's Disease

"Like He's a Kid": Relationality, Family Caregiving, and Alzheimer's Disease

Spousal caregivers draw upon understandings of shifting relationality to maintain a familial understanding of their spouse with Alzheimer's disease. Working through what it means to think of an adult with Alzheimer's disease "like a child," I trace how spouses negotiate their shifting relationships across the course of Alzheimer's. While regarding adults as childlike can be perceived as dehumanizing infantilization, for families living with Alzheimer's disease, conceiving of one's spouse as like a child can actually enable processes of continued care, sustained recognition, and love to uphold personhood in the midst of often radical change.

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Key Information

Type of Reference
Jour
Type of Work
Journal article
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
ISBN/ISSN
0145-9740
Publication Year
2020
Issue Number
1
Journal Titles
Medical Anthropology
Volume Number
39
Start Page
29
End Page
40