Resumo

MARTORELL POVEDA, Mª Antonia. Body and identity in the experience of Alzheimer: intents to recover person's condition. Index Enferm [online]. 2008, vol.17, n.1, pp.17-21. ISSN 1699-5988.

Question as person's condition or the identity have formed and are part from the debate philosophical about to the human existence. In philosophical terms, an person is a being with a body, makes aware, continuity, commitment and responsibility. However, what does it happen to the fellow's body when their conscience is truncated by the presence of an illness like the Alzheimer? Different collective have been built and disclosed a series of cultural representations about Alzheimer’s disease, incorporated and normalized in the experience until the point of collaborating in the person's construction with Alzheimer like somebody "without life." Taking as relating theoretical the symbolic interaccionism and recovering the narratives of family caregivers, it is sought to illustrate and to analyze how in spite of a construction dominant about to a supposed "loss of the being" of the subject with Alzheimer, in occasions, their caregivers favour, through their speeches and practical, the emergency of the person's identity and a recognition of the same one through their corporeal nature, necessary condition for their social identification. By way of conclusion, it’s precise to build and to diffuse an image of the Alzheimer centered in the person that allows its to recognize and daily identification granting him a particular location in the society.

Palavras-chave : Identity; Alzheimer’s disease; cultural representation.