Abstract

FALCAO, Deusivania Vieira da Silva  and  BUCHER-MALUSCHKE, Júlia Sursis Nobre Ferro. The impact of Alzheimer's disease in intergenerational relationships. Psicol. clin. [online]. 2009, vol.21, n.1, pp.137-152. ISSN 0103-5665.

This study investigated, on the perspective of 24 caregiver daughters, caretakers of their fathers/mothers with a probable/possible diagnosis for Alzheimer's Disease (AD), the relationship among them and the children of the caregiver (grandchildren of the AD sufferer). The employed tools were an open interview with a semi-structured script, and FAST (Family System Test), which analyzed the linking and the hierarchy of the relations. The results pointed that in the current representations of the intergenerational relationship, the linking of the caretaking mother to her children was significantly greater than the linking of these with their AD sufferer grandmothers. It was also verified that the grandchildren showed a higher hierarchy towards the disease's sufferer in the current and ideal family situations. It was concluded that with the onset of AD the roles of grandmothers, mothers and grandchildren suffered changes that needed to be reevaluated.

Keywords : Alzheimer; caregivers; grandparents; intergenerational relationships.

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