Couples living with dementia managing conflicting knowledge claims

Abstract

This conversation analytic study investigates how couples manage conflicting knowledge claims when one of the persons has dementia (PWD). The data are video-recordings of 16 couples talking with a third party. The analysis focuses on the negotiation of epistemic rights, more precisely how partners initiate repair and correct claims made by the PWD on matters belonging to the latter’s epistemic domain. We identified three main practices for correcting the PWD: (1) correcting the statement, thereby claiming epistemic authority for oneself and denying it to the PWD, (2) inviting the PWD to self-correct, thereby attributing some epistemic authority to the PWD, and (3) disagreeing and providing reasons for one’s alternative claim, establishing a more symmetric epistemic gradient. The PWDs responses to the corrections displayed different degrees of acceptance, ranging from self-denigration to resistance and insistence.