24 Jan Dementia – Join people in their world – don’t try to bring them into your own
This stayed with me from visiting the House of Memories in Liverpool a few years ago and I felt it would help a lot of people to understand someone who has dementia.
Dementia is a disease of the brain and as it progresses over time it affects not only memory but also daily functions such as communication, motor skills, perception and sequencing of tasks. The individual will start to need support and care to keep them safe and at home in their familiar surroundings.
If you have a relative or friend or neighbour with dementia, they may forget your name, they may forget you have visited them but the emotional feeling you have left them with stays with them. If you have left them feeling content and settled after visiting them, then they will be left with this feeling even though the memory of you may have gone. The Dementia Friends initiative from the Alzheimer’s Society explains this in more detail.
As a community we need to learn and raise awareness. Talking down to someone with Dementia, talking over their head, saying ‘Ah Bless aren’t they having a good time’. You ask that person how it makes them feel and if they are able to tell you the answer would be ‘degrading, patronised, everyone feels sorry for me’. They may be having a fabulous time and it’s great to see, but don’t talk down to them, they were also once a Major in the Army and ran a battalion across the war, they were once a teacher, a Mum, a brother and a friend. They are still an adult, they still have a mind, feelings, emotions, they still need independence and to be included.