Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the establishment and maintenance of the relationship between vocally disruptive severely demented patients and their caregivers as well as what was communicated during a verbal interaction episode (lunchmeal). Two dimensions of verbal interaction were studied, the amount of interactions focused on the task versus the person and the process of verbal interaction. Tape-recordings that had been typed out were analyzed. They concerned 34 vocally disruptive demented patients at psychogeriatric wards and their caregivers. The caregivers'verbal interaction was extremely oriented towards the task performed. Very little interaction took place with more personal orientation. Clarity of cues was found in only one third of the episodes and turn-taking was established in about half of them. The findings show that there was little emphasis on making the feeding procedure a social experience in combination with the task performed. Seemingly, the therapeutic possibilities that caring entails was not taken advantage of
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