R ManuscriptDementia (London). Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 July 01.Ingersoll-Dayton et al.PageA Japanese couple–Before he had dementia, Mr Sakai worked as an editor in a publishing company. At our first Shikonin custom synthesis interview, Mr Sakai rushed upstairs and brought down the children’s book he had written earlier in his career. He and his wife were both very proud of this book. When the practitioners admired the striking picture of Pierrot the clown, Mr and Mrs Sakai and the practitioners decided to use the illustration on the cover of their Life Story Book, representing one of the notable achievements of Mr Sakai’s life. Mrs Sakai expressed surprise that her husband remembered so many things about his work. She also talked about her own life in some detail and when asked, at the end of the intervention to write about her reactions, she wrote, “I felt the Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide (human, rat, mouse, rabbit, canine, porcine) supplement volume of my life, not only of my present being but also of all my past life, this time and that time, my continuing life. I think my life is an ordinary life but I could feel that it had a certain weight and history which made me happy.” The impact of the intervention extended beyond the couple to include the couple’s daughter. After reading their Life Story Book, she wrote, “Looking at the book of my parents’ life, their history might not have been dramatic but it was a happy life. Thanks to my parents the happiness is transferred to us and I thank them for raising us to be happy.”Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptDiscussionThis paper adds to the small but growing body of clinical research on dyadic approaches to dementia care. By conducting the Couples Life Story Approach in both the United States and Japan, our work provides a unique contribution to the literature on international efforts to develop dyadic interventions. Here, we focus on the lessons we have learned during the cross-fertilization process. Accommodating different methods of narration Couples tell the story of their lives together in different ways. The narrative approach taken in the United States has been to ask questions that facilitate a chronological telling of the couple’s story. The American team has developed a series of specific questions within each of three time periods (i.e. early, middle, and recent years). While this approach has worked well for many couples, we have also discovered that some couples do not think about their life together in a chronological way. The Japan team has developed a generic map that allows couples to move back and forth through time. By providing a picture of a general time period (e.g. the early years of marriage), the couple’s narration can easily go back and forth within this time period as they choose. This also allows spouses to begin talking about topics with which they are more comfortable (e.g. work) and then later moving to other topics (e.g. family relationships). To illustrate, the story of the father-in-law whose sandal got caught in the train track was discussed out of chronological sequence and was told much later in the narrative process. Possibly, the wife was only comfortable in discussing this story after developing a relationship with the interventionists. The couples’ communication patterns (e.g. interrupting, correcting, and testing) can sometimes interfere with their ability to collaborate on the telling of their story. Both teams tried to address such problematic patterns. The American team spearheaded a more direct app.R ManuscriptDementia (London). Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 July 01.Ingersoll-Dayton et al.PageA Japanese couple–Before he had dementia, Mr Sakai worked as an editor in a publishing company. At our first interview, Mr Sakai rushed upstairs and brought down the children’s book he had written earlier in his career. He and his wife were both very proud of this book. When the practitioners admired the striking picture of Pierrot the clown, Mr and Mrs Sakai and the practitioners decided to use the illustration on the cover of their Life Story Book, representing one of the notable achievements of Mr Sakai’s life. Mrs Sakai expressed surprise that her husband remembered so many things about his work. She also talked about her own life in some detail and when asked, at the end of the intervention to write about her reactions, she wrote, “I felt the volume of my life, not only of my present being but also of all my past life, this time and that time, my continuing life. I think my life is an ordinary life but I could feel that it had a certain weight and history which made me happy.” The impact of the intervention extended beyond the couple to include the couple’s daughter. After reading their Life Story Book, she wrote, “Looking at the book of my parents’ life, their history might not have been dramatic but it was a happy life. Thanks to my parents the happiness is transferred to us and I thank them for raising us to be happy.”Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptDiscussionThis paper adds to the small but growing body of clinical research on dyadic approaches to dementia care. By conducting the Couples Life Story Approach in both the United States and Japan, our work provides a unique contribution to the literature on international efforts to develop dyadic interventions. Here, we focus on the lessons we have learned during the cross-fertilization process. Accommodating different methods of narration Couples tell the story of their lives together in different ways. The narrative approach taken in the United States has been to ask questions that facilitate a chronological telling of the couple’s story. The American team has developed a series of specific questions within each of three time periods (i.e. early, middle, and recent years). While this approach has worked well for many couples, we have also discovered that some couples do not think about their life together in a chronological way. The Japan team has developed a generic map that allows couples to move back and forth through time. By providing a picture of a general time period (e.g. the early years of marriage), the couple’s narration can easily go back and forth within this time period as they choose. This also allows spouses to begin talking about topics with which they are more comfortable (e.g. work) and then later moving to other topics (e.g. family relationships). To illustrate, the story of the father-in-law whose sandal got caught in the train track was discussed out of chronological sequence and was told much later in the narrative process. Possibly, the wife was only comfortable in discussing this story after developing a relationship with the interventionists. The couples’ communication patterns (e.g. interrupting, correcting, and testing) can sometimes interfere with their ability to collaborate on the telling of their story. Both teams tried to address such problematic patterns. The American team spearheaded a more direct app.
