Reactions to Discredit in Memory Consultation

Abstract

Based on the observation of around seventy memory consultations, this article provides an analysis of cognitive assessment in the elderly in a Goffmanian perspective. During these interactions, patients run the risk of losing their credibility, given that what they say is both solicited by the geriatrician in order to spot potential daily difficulties and examined as potential signs of dementia. After having described how observed consultations work, the author presents the main strategies that patients seem to develop when doctors place their credibility in doubt and concludes with some reflections about interpretive issues regarding the elderly patients’ behavior during medical assessment.