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"I Want to Do Something" - Exploring What Makes Activities Meaningful for Community-Dwelling People Living With Dementia: A Focused Ethnographic Study

Harding, Emma; Sullivan, Mary Pat; Camic, Paul M; Yong, Keir XX; Stott, Joshua; Crutch, Sebastian J; (2024) "I Want to Do Something" - Exploring What Makes Activities Meaningful for Community-Dwelling People Living With Dementia: A Focused Ethnographic Study. Qualitative Health Research 10.1177/10497323241239487. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

Supporting ageing in place, quality of life, and activity engagement are public health priorities for people with dementia. The importance of maintaining opportunities for meaningful activities has been widely acknowledged for those with dementia in long-term care, but little is known about what makes activities meaningful for, and how they are experienced by, people with different types of dementia in their own homes. This study used focussed ethnographic methods to explore the motivations and meanings of everyday activity engagement within the homes of 10 people with memory-led Alzheimer's disease and 10 people with posterior cortical atrophy. While participants' interactions with their everyday environments were challenged by their diagnoses, they were all finding ways to continue meaning-making via various activities. The main findings are encapsulated in three themes: (1) The fun and the function of activities; (2) Reciprocities of care, and (3) The constitution and continuity of (a changing) self. Ongoing engagement with both fun and functional activities offered participants living with different dementias opportunities to connect with others, to offer care and support (as well as receive it), and to maintain a sense of self and identity. Implications are discussed regarding the development and delivery of tailored interventions and support to enable continued engagement in meaningful activities for people with different types of dementia living in the community.

Type: Article
Title: "I Want to Do Something" - Exploring What Makes Activities Meaningful for Community-Dwelling People Living With Dementia: A Focused Ethnographic Study
Location: United States
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1177/10497323241239487
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10497323241239487
Language: English
Additional information: © The Author(s) 2024. Creative Commons License (CC BY 4.0) This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the Sage and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Keywords: Science & Technology, Social Sciences, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Technology, Public, Environmental & Occupational Health, Information Science & Library Science, Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary, Social Sciences, Biomedical, Social Sciences - Other Topics, Biomedical Social Sciences, ethnography, dementia, meaningful activities, neurocognitive disorders, qualitative research, YOUNG-ONSET DEMENTIA, ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE, CARE, EXPERIENCES, PARTICIPATION, LIFE
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Neurodegenerative Diseases
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10191765
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