Affect is an Important Factor in Processing Alzheimer Disease Awareness Messages

Alzheimer’s disease is a devastating, incurable disease. The disease pathway is typically characterised by a long preclinical phase in which patients experience mild cognitive impairments (Visser et al, 2002). Medical research states that through early diagnosis of symptoms the disease process can be slowed down (Seltzer, 2007; Bain et al., 2008). The main concern is then to make the population at risk aware of the importance of early diagnosis and stimulate them to take responsible actions at the earliest stage of the onset of the disease. Very little is known about the efficacy of health communication in the domain of a fatal disease, where one can merely intervene in order to lengthen the time period in which the patient can still enjoy a reasonable quality of life. However, results of previous research on the emotional and cognitive responses to various message formats of (health) communication can serve as frameworks to analyze different types of health messages (Williams-Piehota et al., 2006; Morris et al., 2002; Bagozzi et al., 1999; Brown and Stayman, 1992; Petty et al., 1993; Mitchell, 1988; Petty and Cacioppo, 1986; Chaiken, 1980).