Metaphors of young-onset dementia in the illness narratives of those with the condition

This study identified and analyzed metaphors related to the lived experience of young-onset dementia that were used in nine illness narratives written by people with the condition. A final set of 1111 MEs sorted into 30 source domain categories were grouped according to six target domain categories reflecting the biologic (the person with dementia's body/brain), psychologic (suffering with dementia, coping with dementia, dementia itself, the person with dementia), and social (the social experience of dementia) aspects of having dementia. Notably, many of the metaphors were similar to previously reported metaphors of illness, such as fight and journey, and other metaphors of embodiment, as well as disease as enemy, body as container, and body as machine. In addition, although negative conceptualizations were in the majority, almost one-third of the metaphoric expressions, belonging to the fight and journey source domain categories, reflected mainly positive images. The commonality of metaphor types with those of other illness experiences supports the notion of shared metaphors across illness contexts. Moreover, in contrast to the dehumanizing and stigmatizing terms that have previously been used to socially construct dementia, the positivity of metaphoric images identified here indicates the authors' proactive and affirming conceptualizations of their experience of dementia. Health care professionals can draw on this study's findings to help their own patients make sense of and cope with dementia.