Alzheimer’s Patients Other Than Themselves and Their Loved Ones: Circularity as Evil and Regularity as Remedy Cover Image

Le malade d’Alzheimer autre à soi et à ses proches: la circularité comme mal et la régularité comme remédiation
Alzheimer’s Patients Other Than Themselves and Their Loved Ones: Circularity as Evil and Regularity as Remedy

Author(s): Christophe Cusimano, Kristýna Vítková
Subject(s): Semantics, Cognitive linguistics, Health and medicine and law
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Sklodowskiej
Keywords: Alzheimer's disease; memory; repetition; regularity; iteration; semantics; speech analysis;

Summary/Abstract: Any caregiver who has to face the discursive and gestural repetitions of Alzheimer’s patients must nevertheless set up a daily schedule routine. This apparent paradox brings together circularity on the one hand and regularity on the other, two principles based on the same axiom: iteration. Iteration can cause the patient to be locked up within himself when it takes the shape of circularity, whereas it can be beneficial when it takes the form of a reassuring regularity. The latter removes, at least temporarily, the threat of a dual break of the patient, from himself and from his friends and family. In this article, we consider iteration from two angles, linguistic and behavioural.

  • Issue Year: 45/2021
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 79-88
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: French