Date of Award

January 2025

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Public Health (MPH)

Department

School of Public Health

First Advisor

Joan Monin

Abstract

This thesis examines how long-term partners sustain intimacy when one partner lives with dementia. Through an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) workshop with four couples from the Empowering Partnership Network—a joint initiative of the Yale Social Gerontology Lab and the Livewell Institute—this research explores how relationships adapt and endure amidst cognitive change. Drawing on Irene Smith’s Touch Awareness methodology and theories of relational autonomy, the study challenges dominant deficit-based narratives by highlighting the enduring capacity for meaningful connection. Participants described intimacy as grounded in embodied practices, daily rituals, and what they called the “third body”—a shared relational space that transforms rather than diminishes with cognitive shifts. The findings reveal how institutional and legal systems often constrain these relationships, relying on binary notions of capacity that overlook the fluid, contextual nature of consent and connection. This work advocates for strength-based frameworks that uphold personhood throughout cognitive change and offers recommendations for practice, policy, and research that affirm the right to intimacy as integral to human dignity and wellbeing.

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This is an Open Access Thesis.

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