What happens to recognitions of dementia patients in the process of losing words and self-recognition?

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K12284
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Gerontological nursing
• Research Institution: University of Kochi (2017-2019); Osaka Yukioka College of Health Science (2016)
• Principal Investigator: Yokoi Teruo 高知県立大学, 社会福祉学部, 教授 (00412247)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: アルツハイマー病 / ことば

Outline of Final Research Achievements

As my research development, I wrote three papers. I submitted two of them, titled “Linguistic understanding of illness” and “Alzherimer’s disease from the linguistic viewpoint”, to one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world. They were rejected by the journal, yet, I am revising to resubmit them again. The first paper “Linguistic understanding of illness” argues that adding linguistic approach expands a new horizon to the understanding of onsets and symptoms of illness. The second paper “Alzheimer’s disease from the linguistic viewpoint” argues the way a person cannot escape from living within the boundary of language, treating “I” (patients with Alzheimer’s disease of first person) as the main character. The third paper “A perspective to understand the behavior of severe Alzheimer’s disease patients with loss of language skill” (under submission) discusses how to understand cognitive point of view and behavior of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

Free Research Field

リハビリテーション学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

研究目的は、ことばの喪失過程で、アルツハイマー病の人の認識に何が起きているのかを明らかにすることであった。
ことばはコミュニケーションや思考の手段である前に、世界を分節（区切り）し、人間の認識をつくることが根源的な働きである。ことばで世界を区切る前は、世界は連続していた。ことばとして表現されてはじめて、われわれは森羅万象の存在を明確に意識できる。ことばでつくられた世界が崩れてゆくアルツハイマー病。言語論的分析を通して、はじめてアルツハイマー病の人の世界（認識や行動の意味）が分かる。それはケアの方法を明らかにすることになる。