When the disease suspends the identity: analyses of an Alzheimer case and its care

Abstract

Through a specific case study, in this paper the author proposes to think about some changes that the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease involves in the representation of elderly people and in care relationships. The information collected through the fieldwork experience reveals, on the one hand, that the person’s behavior is interpreted merely as a result of his/her disease. On the other hand, this change in the person’s biomedical representation leads the family to develop a new caring strategy that privileges care-givers’ needs over care-receivers’ needs.