Meaning in life has grown into a topic of great interest in psychological research. Conceptually, scholars differentiate between sources and components of meaning. However, the current scholarly views on meaning are highly cognitive and it is unclear to what extent they correspond with the understanding of lay people with cognitive difficulties, like those with Alzheimer’s disease. Using directed content analysis, we analyzed short descriptions of meaning in life of 126 older adults with Alzheimer’s disease, exploring whether the components (i.e., coherence, purpose, significance) and sources from the current literature could be identified and what additional themes emerged in their accounts. Replicating findings in other populations, family and relationships were the most prominent sources. Coherence and purpose were each described by 15% of participants, significance was almost not mentioned. We discuss the entanglement of components and sources in people’s descriptions and the possibility of a connection facet underlying meaning. We provide evidence for a distinction between cognitive and felt coherence and show that many participants talked about fulfilled and purpose instead of future-oriented purpose, emphasizing the need for a developmental understanding of meaning.

生命的意义已成为心理学研究中非常感兴趣的话题。从概念上讲，学者对意义的来源和构成成分进行区分。但是，当前关于意义的学术观点是高度认知的，尚不清楚它们在多大程度上与对患有认知障碍的人（如阿尔茨海默氏病）的理解相符。使用定向内容分析，我们分析了126名阿尔茨海默氏病老年人的生命意义的简短描述，探讨了是否可以识别当前文献中的成分（即连贯性，目的，意义）和来源，以及它们中出现了哪些其他主题帐户。在其他人群，家庭和人际关系中复制发现是最主要的来源。一致性和目的分别由15％的参与者描述，重要性几乎没有被提及。我们讨论了人们描述中组件和源的纠缠，以及潜在的联系方面的可能性。我们提供了区分认知和感觉连贯性的证据，并表明许多参与者谈论的是成就感和目的，而不是面向未来的目的，强调了对意义的发展性理解的必要性。