Mutuality in the Marital Relationship in Advanced Parkinson's Disease: Lifeworld Existentials
Institute Emerging Scholar seminar - Rabbi Dr. Rena Arshinoff - Feb 11/21
EXPERIENCES OF MUTUALITY IN THE MARITAL RELATIONSHIP IN ADVANCED PARKINSON’S DISEASE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE CAREGIVING PARTNER: THE APPLICATION OF LIFEWORLD EXISTENTIALS TO UNCOVERING THE IMPACT OF ADVANCED ILLNESS -- Rabbi Rena Arshinoff, PhD Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Dept. of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto -- Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a chronic and degenerative illness with a long trajectory involving multiple physical, cognitive, and emotional changes. Medical visits focus on physical symptoms with less attention paid to the chronic spiritual and psychosocial effects of PD such as relationship satisfaction. As illness advances, dependence on others occurs; mainly the spouse is the primary caregiver. Despite research on burden of care for PD spouses, the literature reveals little on mutuality, which concerns the quality of the relationship, and almost nothing on mutuality in advanced illness. This was investigated in a qualitative study using the methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology which focuses on the analysis of the lifeworld, or lived experience to understand meaning. Max van Manen named four lifeworld themes or existentials that form a unity for each person: spatiality (lived space), temporality (lived time), corporeality (lived body), and relationality (lived relations). These four existentials that are both interdependent and at times intertwined, offer a holistic framework in understanding lived experience by exploring layers of meaning in the four unique contexts and help to promote the uniqueness of each individual as he/she experiences their lifeworld. This presentation will highlight the application of van Manen’s approach that was used to gain insight into the impact of advanced PD on the quality of the marital relationship from the perspective of the caregiving spouse and the use of the results in developing holistic and palliative care approaches to PD patients and their caregiving spouses.