[Understanding the suffering of the elderly]

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease is an organic disease of the brain affecting mainly elderly people. Drawing on patients' imaginations on a daily basis or art therapy allow them, despite the cognitive impairments, to construct symbolic objects, analogues, to help give back meaning to their life. If the use of symbolisation when evoking the real object is not possible, the meaning is therefore constructed using the figurative dimension, an analogue substituting the lost and absent object, too painful to evoke again.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease; art therapy; art-thérapie; maladie d’Alzheimer; meaning of life; semiotics; sens de la vie; symbolisation; sémiotique.