The Experience of Alzheimer’s Disease as a Learning Situation

Abstract

The author shows Alzheimer’s disease as a learning situation, from the andragogic perspective and in the context of experience analysis of three family carers. She describes this learning as an informal process. She also points to the dramatic aspect of accompanying the patient on their journey as an important background to this process. She emphasizes “maturation in a process” as a particular dimension of this learning which deepens the existential development of the carers. She stresses the importance of support for people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease by adult education and geragogy specialists, which enables carers to experience the disease as a process of broadening their self-awareness.