Narrative intentions: Listening to life stories in Alzheimer's disease

Persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) experience progressive memory and language losses. To assess how these losses influenced the ability to share a personal narrative, we listened to the narratives of six persons with AD and sh persons without cognitive losses. Narratives of persons with AD were less chronologically organized, included repetitions, omitted salient events, and contained fewer detailed descriptions than the comparison group participants. In addition, most members of the AD group, and no members of the comparison group, sought assistance during the narrative task. Perhaps most significant, though, persons with AD were willing and able to complete the assignment-their assets and limitations as narrators of the self are described.