The picture of happiness in Alzheimer's disease: Living a life congruent with personal values

It is generally understood that happiness is an important goal of dementia care, though evaluation has been challenging. Concerns about cognitive and communicative limitations have led to the use of proxy reports to assess positive affect. However, proxy reports have been shown to differ from appraisals obtained by the person with Alzheimer's disease (AD). This article reports on a qualitative study of happiness in a sample of 12 persons with mild to moderate AD using photo-elicitation and individual interviews for data collection. Results demonstrate people with mild to moderate AD can provide meaningful evaluations of happiness, and that lifelong values continue to be important in the presence of AD. This study suggests photographs may offer a novel approach to obtain a contextualized understanding of happiness and other values in this population which may lead to the development of person centered interventions aimed to improve the individual's quality of life.