NONE OF THEM ARE REALLY FRIENDS: STAFF PERCEPTIONS OF THE SOCIAL WORLD OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH DEMENTIA IN LONG-TERM CARE

Abstract Nursing homes are charged with the care and protection of residents. Consequently, staff exercise tremendous control over residents’ day-to-day lives, including their social worlds. This is especially true for people living with dementia who may have challenges with communication. This paper examined how staff viewed friendships among dementia residents. Eleven staff members were asked to describe the friendship among the 20 residents in their charge to include who was friends with whom and what were the key features of the friendships. Results revealed that nearly all staff viewed residents as incapable of forming friendships among other residents. One exception was that many staff viewed felts that the male residents enjoyed a level of friendship that female residents did not. Overall, the findings point to the need to help staff move beyond a limited view of residents’ capabilities and discover ways to help foster a rich social environment

constructions of identity, relationships, and community. In this symposium, we draw data from the "Friendship Study," a 6-month ethnographic study on the social environments of people living with dementia in long-term care to consider meaning-making in dementia through three perspectives: phenomenological, gerontological, and discursive. The first paper considers the phenomenology of friendship, moving away from linear narratives to look at micro-constructions of identity. The second considers the co-construction of friendship through discursive elements found in conversational interactions. The third challenges staff's construction of residents, highlighting how negative assumptions about resident capabilities can affect personal relationships and the social environment.

EXPERIENCE BEYOND NARRATIVE: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL ACCOUNT OF MEANING-MAKING WHILE LIVING IN THE WORLD WITH DEMENTIA MaryKatherine Gaurke, Georgetown University, Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Narrative-based approaches in dementia care emphasize the importance of understanding humans as beings who make sense of themselves and others through constructing life narratives, taking this process to be morally significant for constituting or characterizing identities (and for holding others into their identities) (Kitwood, 1997). Yet, placing too much emphasis on the formation of a cohesive life narrative risks dismissing or otherwise failing to acknowledge the activities of meaning-making and narrative-sharing/ constructing that those with dementia engage outside of, or even counter to, a unified narrative. This paper offers a Heideggerian-inspired phenomenological analysis of interactions detailed in the Friendship Study (de Medeiros et al. 2011) and from supporting published accounts and personal observation in clinical settings. This account reveals significant meaning-making possibilities engaged and shared among those living with dementia in long-term care settings that may be left unexamined in traditional narrative-based approaches suggesting that micro-narrative construction needs further attention.

FRIENDSHIP IS IN THE DETAILS: CO-CONSTRUCTION OF RELATIONSHIPS AMONG PERSONS WITH DEMENTIA IN LONG-TERM CARE Pamela Saunders, Georgetown University, Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Friendships have been linked to psychological and emotional wellbeing and better physical functioning in older adults. Conversely, negative consequences (e.g., depression) are associated with losing friendships and shrinking social networks. While cognitive decline might be a limiting factor for persons with dementia (PWD) to establish friendships, this has not been proven in the literature. This paper reports on 20 interactions between PWD collected during the Friendship Study (de Medeiros et al. 2011), an ethnographic study of friendship in long-term care (LTC). Participants are male and female residents in an LTC community. Diagnoses range from mild to severe Alzheimer's disease. Conversational interactions were transcribed and coded for linguistic and discursive devices signaling friendly interactions. Findings reveal that friendships are co-constructed by PWD using 4 primary linguistic discursive devices, including topic (meals, religion, medication, furniture, directions, baking), co-constructed narrative, repetition, and alignment. Implications for future research on friendship among PWD are discussed.

NONE OF THEM ARE REALLY FRIENDS: STAFF PERCEPTIONS OF THE SOCIAL WORLD OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH DEMENTIA IN LONG-TERM CARE Kate de Medeiros, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, United States
Nursing homes are charged with the care and protection of residents. Consequently, staff exercise tremendous control over residents' day-to-day lives, including their social worlds. This is especially true for people living with dementia who may have challenges with communication. This paper examined how staff viewed friendships among dementia residents. Eleven staff members were asked to describe the friendship among the 20 residents in their charge to include who was friends with whom and what were the key features of the friendships. Results revealed that nearly all staff viewed residents as incapable of forming friendships among other residents. One exception was that many staff viewed felts that the male residents enjoyed a level of friendship that female residents did not. Overall, the findings point to the need to help staff move beyond a limited view of residents' capabilities and discover ways to help foster a rich social environment

TECHNOLOGY TO SUPPORT OLDER ADULTS' HEALTH, SAFETY, AND WELLBEING Chair: Walter Boot
Technology has revolutionized the ability to deliver interventions to support older adults' health, safety, and wellbeing, and technology-based solutions have become increasingly important in the delivery of remote care during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these interventions and novel approaches require a careful understanding of older adults' needs, preferences, and abilities, and need to undergo tests of feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy. This session will present a sampling of research examining the development, testing, and implementation of technology-based solutions to support older adults. R. Azevedo will present on the development of a novel digital therapeutic for the self-management of hypertension medication adherence among older adults. S. Kwon will present on the initial efficacy of an app-based mindfulness-meditation intervention to alleviate stress and depressive symptoms among bereaved older adults. Y. Du will discuss the use of a commercial fitness tracker to facilitate activity self-monitoring among overweight diabetic older adults with and without kidney disease. S. Dimmick will discuss the development of a novel augmented reality (AR) safety checklist to reduce fall risk among older adults. Finally, F. Jain will present on the development of a new mobile application platform to meet the needs of family dementia caregivers informed by focus groups and an inductive and deductive mixed method analytic approach. Themes of the necessity of a user-centered Innovation in Aging, 2022, Vol. 6, No. S1