Quality of Life for Persons Living with Alzheimer's Disease: The Human Becoming Perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to ascertain the meaning of quality of life for persons living with Alzheimer's disease. The human becoming theory was the nursing perspective for this descriptive-exploratory study in which 25 people, designated as having mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease, were asked to describe their quality of life. Findings showed that quality for these participants is a contentment with the remembered and now affiliations that arises amidst the tedium of the commonplace, as an easy-uneasy flow of transfiguring surfaces with liberating possibilities and confining constraints, while desiring cherished intimacies yields with inevitable distancing in the vicissitudes of life, as contemplating the ambiguity of the possibles emerges with yearning for successes in the moment.Implications for further research and practice are also discussed.