The House-Drawing Test: Using a projective test in assessment to differentiate normal from pathological ageing

Abstract

This article proposes to show how the use of the drawing of the home can help differentiate two older populations, with or without cognitive impairment as part of research to identify early signs of Alzheimer's disease. The projective test of the house is complementary to the cognitive assessment. Two groups of older adults are compared: an experimental group with 24 people aged 67 with cognitive impairment and a control group with 36 people aged 71.5 years with normal cognitive aging. Analysis of the house drawings revealed significant differences in the realization of the drawings between the control group (CG) and the experimental group (EG). The characteristics of the drawings of elderly people with cognitive impairment show more difficult access to imagination and a feeling of insecurity as of the first memory impairment. This article puts the body at the center of psychoanalytic work and explores the relationship between the psychic and bodily dimensions of elderly subjects using a projective spatiography test. This projective tool allowed us to collect information on the psychic functioning of the elderly.

Keywords

• elderly
• projective test
• house drawing
• assessment.