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9 - Identifying Family Members in Photographs

Practical Epistemic and Deontic Challenges for a Person with Frontotemporal Dementia

from Part 4 - Dementia and Epistemics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2024

By
Peter Muntigl  and
Stephanie Hödl
Edited by
Peter Muntigl ,
Charlotta Plejert  and
Danielle Jones
Peter Muntigl
Affiliation:
Universiteit Gent, Belgium
Charlotta Plejert
Affiliation:
Linköpings Universitet, Sweden
Danielle Jones
Affiliation:
University of Bradford
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Summary

For this chapter, we examine everyday interactions involving a person diagnosed with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD; pseudonym Trudy). Drawing on the methods of conversation analysis, our specific research focus is placed on how knowledge is solicited, displayed and resisted in contexts of viewing family photos. Our data are taken from video recordings of Trudy at home in the presence of family, caregivers and two researchers. We found that looking at family photos comprised three different activities, each aiming to elicit a response from Trudy: ’Who are they?’; ’Who is that?’; ’Find X!’. Epistemic stances taken up by the participants were found to index Trudy’s ‘reduced’ epistemic domain with respect to her ability in recognizing family members in photos. On the other hand, it was also found that she was able to take up a position of epistemic authority when asserting who is not in the picture. To conclude, although Trudy was at times able to take up a position of epistemic authority to reveal her biographical knowledge, the conversational agenda mainly involved testing Trudy on what she knew, with the unfortunate result being that it was often made clear where she was lacking in knowledge.

Keywords

assessmentsbehavioural variant frontotemporal dementiaconversation analysisdirectivesepistemicsexam questionsinformation requestsresponse pursuits
Type
Chapter
Information
Dementia and Language
The Lived Experience in Interaction
 , pp. 197 - 225
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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