The purpose of this study was to understand conversations and to identify typical conversational problems between nurses and patients with dementia.

A conversation analysis method was used. The data was collected in a geriatric institutional setting, using a videotape recorder, and transcribed. The transcribed data was analyzed in terms of expressions, contents, and relationships to identify communicative problems and their resolutions.

Among a total of 532 episodes, 440(82.7%) were identified as nurse-involved episodes. In addition, 66 of the 440 episodes were selected based on the significance of the conversation. The communicative problems between nurses and patients in terms of expressions were identified as “directive and authoritative expressions”, “emotional and competitive expressions”, “evasive and on-looking expressions”, and “excessive use of title only”, such as calling them granny or grandpa without proper names. In terms of content and relationships, “lack of themes in psychosocial areas” and “nurse-led relations” were identified respectively as communicative problems.

The results of this study will provide substantial guidelines for nurses in caring for elderly patients with dementia by deeply understanding linguistic structures and problems of everyday conversations between nurses and patients with dementia.

This paper reports a randomized controlled trial to investigate the effects of a Marital-relationship enhancement program(MREP) for marital couples.

Volunteer couples from several well-being centers in Seoul were randomly assigned either to a treatment group (n=36), participating in a MREP based on Gottman's “sound marital house” theory, or to a control group (n=35) receiving no treatment. The content of the MREP was provided to the control group after the research was completed. Data was collected from December 2003 to May 2004 using modified versions of the inventories developed by Gottman on marital satisfaction, positive affect, conflict regulation, and communication barriers.

Participants in the experimental group showed significant improvements in marital satisfaction, positive affects, conflict regulation, and communication-barrier scores compared to the control group.

The present program for marital-relationship enhancement is helpful in enhancing marital relationships and regulating conflict between marital couples and, ultimately, may be useful to prevent divorce.