Whispers of memory: How families navigate dementia support beyond the biomedical lens in Nigeria
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Research on dementia caregiving in Africa often prioritizes biomedical and formal health-care services, overlooking broader family and community-based support networks. Addressing this gap, this study explores when and which support services Yoruba families use and how these services shape their caregiving experiences within the dementia care context. METHODS: Guided by interpretive phenomenology and Afrocentric principles, we conducted 15 semi-structured family interviews with 52 participants (2-5 per family), alongside persons with dementia. Interviews were audio-recorded, translated, and thematically analyzed. RESULTS: Help seeking often began when behavioral symptoms became overwhelming. Urban families (n = 11) leaned on hospital services, while rural families (n = 4) turned to faith-based and traditional healers. Support was appreciated for offering reassurance, though hospital services often lacked cultural sensitivity, and traditional options-while fostering hope-could reinforce stigma. DISCUSSION: Enhancing dementia awareness and collaboration between medical, spiritual, and traditional systems may improve caregiver experiences and encourage earlier, culturally appropriate interventions. HIGHLIGHTS: Yoruba families caring for loved ones with dementia do not adhere to rigid care pathways. Instead, they move fluidly between hospitals, religious spaces, and traditional healing practices-not just in search of treatment but to find meaning, reassurance, and continuity with ancestral ways of knowing. Memory loss is not always seen as a medical condition; it is often interpreted through spiritual, cultural, and communal lenses. Families may turn to faith leaders or elders first, delaying formal care until behaviors become disruptive or socially visible. Our interpretive phenomenological analysis, grounded in an Afrocentric lens, reveals caregiving as both an expression of love and a weighty responsibility. The ever-present fear of judgment-from within and outside the family-can lead to silence, isolation, and hesitation in seeking biomedical support. A more compassionate and culturally anchored dementia care model requires health-care professionals, traditional healers, and faith leaders to work together. Through dialogue and mutual respect, they can create care networks that honor Yoruba worldviews, allowing families to navigate dementia in ways that feel both medically sound and spiritually resonant.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.008 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".