Sens du rire et du sourire dans la maladie d'Alzheimer

In the severe stages of Alzheimer's disease, patients often lose the ability to communicate verbally. This decline in the person's faculties is a genuine challenge. In order to understand the experience of these patients, we analyse the follow-up of an elderly person with Alzheimer's disease in the mute stage. This follow-up extended over two years with weekly 15-minute sessions, totalling more that 140 sessions. Our hypothesis was that people with Alzheimer's disease can continue to deploy psychic mechanisms similar to those encountered in infants. The analysis of this long-term accompaniment enabled us to identify different types of non-verbal behaviours, such as smiles and laughter, even if they appear inappropriate, providing clues for the understanding of their role as means of communication.