“Mas nunca me esqueço”: a face feminina da Doença de Alzheimer

Abstract

Caused by the accumulation of the beta-amyloid protein and the presence of the tau protein, the Alzheimer’s Disease (henceforth AD) generates the neuron’s death and the nerve synapse’s lost which trigger symptoms that affect not only the individual with the disease but also the people around and, at a macrolevel, the society. Given the scenario of population aging, the concern regarding this neurodegenerative pathology has been gaining emphasis in different areas. However, frequently, the researchers developed in the AD’s context still without cause and cure identified (McDade; Bateman, 2017) reinforce a limiting and homogenizer stereotype. Aspects as gender and live history are erased and the deficits caused by the disease are highlighted. In this scenario, the present research aims to understand how the construction of identities occurs in narratives of women with AD in interactions. This work falls within the field of Applied Linguistics and has a qualitative interpretive nature. Data were generated in open interviews, comprehended as discursive events of meaning’s co-construction between the interlocutors (Mishler, 1986) with three participants following the narrative research approach. The theoretical methodological framework applied to analyze the interviews is constituted by the dimensions of narrative from Ochs and Capps (2001) and by the levels of discursive positioning from Bamberg (1997). The results show that the participants, despite the difficulties caused by the AD, managed to remain active during the interactions. Through narratives, they constructed their identities marked by moral positionings towards recurrent speeches in the society they are inserted.