Table 4

Quotes illustrating behaviours identified in interviews

Issues specific to dementia

We've been talking really just about the dementia, haven't we, really, not the full hog of Alzheimer's.

Patient interview 21 325-6

You mean the memory? Oh, I never thought of it as an illness."

Patient interview 23 215-6

Support needs

It's been three years now I think, so it's been horrible and it's on my mind all the time, all the time, there's not a day goes by where I don't think about it."

Patient interview 24 109-11

Role of carers

"I think at the time it would have probably been me that would have needed to sort of, emphasise maybe, that he, that if, that I could be expressing things to him in a way that would help him to understand, rather than the doctors who are, th-th they only see him once, twice, you know [mmm] don't see him very often."

Carer 22 162-6

"If she's getting information there it would be nice to know what she's getting because I'm the one that does the supporting in between whiles."

Carer 23 239-41

Need for a person-centred approach

This doctor, he was about fifteen feet away from me, and I heard him say 'Oh, just tell him he's had a stroke and he's got Alzheimers'.

Patient interview 24 37-39

Lecouturier et al. BMC Health Services Research 2008 8:95   doi:10.1186/1472-6963-8-95