title: Understanding the personhood of Deaf people with dementia: methodological issues.
abstract: This article concerns Deaf people in the United Kingdom, who use sign language, who have a formal diagnosis of dementia and who have participated in interviews in British Sign Language (BSL) about their experience of living with dementia. We address the methodological challenges involved in enabling culturally meaningful participation in circumstances where the non-verbal is not equivalent to the non-linguistic. We demonstrate the use of interpretative narrative representation of data for purposes of cultural brokering. We explore the contribution of Deaf people's experiences and the analysis of their visual, spatial narratives to debates about personhood and the embodied self in dementia studies. Finally, we consider the significance of the situational as cultural in relation to holistic interpretation of narrative.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, University of Manchester, UK. Electronic address: alys.young@manchester.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Alys
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Young
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, University of Manchester, UK.
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ferguson-Coleman
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, University of Manchester, UK.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Keady
mesh_terms: D003469:Culture; D003704:Dementia / Q000523:psychology*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D028723:Personhood; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D012813:Sign Language; D006113:United Kingdom
keywords: Deaf; Dementia; Sign language; Visual methods