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Abstract
Since research on religion has historically employed a psychological framework of coping, sociocultural influences on illness identities are not well understood. This article explores the role of religion/spirituality in a diverse sample of seniors dealing with Alzheimer's. Interviews with 75 affected elders reveal that faith can promote “strength and hope,” “never feeling alone,” “remembering,” “keeping a positive attitude,” “contentment,” and “social and interpersonal benefits.” This protective aspect of religious identities suggests views of self that are far less compromised and of dementia that are far less medicalized in this predominantly African American sample than previous studies with white counterparts report.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank all the Chicagoland participants who took the time to share their stories with us. We also appreciate the Northwestern Alzheimer's Disease Center (NADC) grant (AG13854) and the NADC Clinical Core providing us with access to their research registry. Jennifer Snyder provided instrumental research assistance with assembling and analyzing these data. We are also grateful to the three reviewers who provided insightful comments that improved the article considerably.
FUNDING
This work was supported by the Midwest Roybal Center for Health Promotion and Behavior Change [grant number 2005-E7651]; the Illinois Department of Public Health's Alzheimer's Disease Research Fund [grant #83280014]; and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [grant # U48 DP-000051] Prevention Research Centers’ Healthy Aging Research Network (PRC-HAN) Special Interest Project (SIP) 13-04 and SIP 8-06—awarded to the second author.