Oral discourse structural and content of institucionalized elderly women with and without cognitive deficit and depression

Abstract

It was carried out a descriptive study aimed at to analyze the oral discourse of institutionalized elderly women concerning structure and content analysis. There were involved two situations of selfreport: a) related to the theme “Courtship and dating when I was young”, and b) related to “Managing of practical life in the institution”. There were 30 subjects, aged 60 to 96; 19 were depressed and 10 mildly cognitively impaired. There were performed content and statistical analysis. All the discourses were coherent; 83,3% of the discourses to the first theme and 86.7% to the second were topically relevant. Objective emissions were significantly more frequent than subjective, independently of age, duration of residence in the institution, depression and cognitive deficit. Cognitive impaired and depressed women exhibited less relevant discourses, containing more subjective negative emissions.