Poetry Written from the Words of People Given a Diagnosis of Dementia: A Narrative Analysis

Narrative - based research in dementia is limited. Theorists emphasise certain aspects as core features of ‘analysable’ narratives that are not reliably present in narratives of people diagnosed with dementia (e.g., temporality). This study, underpinned by social constructionist epistemology, demonstrates that attending to such narratives provides valuable understandings. Some narratives evidenced speakers’ lack of agency over their own experiences, appearing to coincide with constructions of low self - esteem, hopelessness, or being positioned by others into identities contradictory to speakers’ Self - constructs. Yet other na rratives demonstrated that, through acknowledgement and support of ‘personhood’, speakers retained a sense of control and purpose in their social world