Learning to Speak Dementia
This is how normal dementia works. The first noticeable thing that happens is that gradually you lose the ability to access your short-term memory. You know this long before anyone else notices. That’s because it’s a long slow process. By the time others notice, you have probably been unable to retain short-term memories for some years.
Having short-term memory damage means you don’t remember yesterday at all. You may not even remember five minutes ago. You well may have forgotten or become unclear about the last ten years.
That’s pretty frightening for anyone. It makes you feel unsafe, insecure, alone. You may react to these feelings in different ways. Some are angry and fearful, others depressed. Some withdraw from human contact. These are all emotional reactions to the terror that memory damage causes inside you.
As if that weren’t bad enough, growing damage to the part of your brain that does cognitive thinking begins to affect you too. It’s not that you’re becoming stupid. Or that your I.Q. has diminished. It’s that you can’t retain the steps in thinking.
Before you were ill, your wife would say, “Honey, I need to write a check for $500 for the property taxes before the end of the month or we’ll be in trouble,” and you heard, remembered and understood everything she said.
Once the damage to your brain affects the once-easy flow of thought information, your wife’s sentence might be heard in this way. “Honey, I need [forgotten] $500 for the [forgotten] or we’ll be in trouble.”
Aware that you don’t understand, you react angrily to what you think was said, “I’m not made of money. You’re always spending. I’m not giving you anything.” And you refuse to hand over the checkbook.
This is the very beginning step in learning to speak dementia. We who care for people with dementia need to develop a deeply compassionate sense of empathy for people whose very brains are betraying them.
We need to understand the terror, confusion and desolation that can sweep over them every time they are reminded they can’t remember stuff and every time they hear information or questions they just can’t follow.
Imagine it. Maybe you’re pretty bad at math. A rotten cook. Lousy at the computer. But you can remember your day and your yesterday. You can retain a whole sentence in your memory in a conversation. You’re able to take part in social life.
Now imagine this. You’re a Nobel Prize Winner. You ran the Opera House of a glittering world-renowned city. You’re a famous film star, a writer, a poet. And you can’t remember what someone just said to you. And you have no idea who they are.
Once you have dementia, all the things that once were part of your very structure are no longer there for you. You may forget your whole last twenty years, including all your attainments. You have lost your operating power, because memory, intellectual organization and life experience give that to us.
That is where we begin to learn to speak dementia. Before we ever say a word, we have to understand the losses that people with dementia are forced to live with, every day.
Then we have to step up beside them. Not in pity, but in honest admiration of how they manage to face the average day. Then we walk with them on their day’s journey, so they can be more.
Article by Frena Gray-Davidson
Frena Gray-Davidson, Alzheimer’s caregiver and author of five caregiving books, including her latest book “Alzheimer’s 911: Hope, Help and Healing for Caregivers”, available at http://www.amazon.com . Frena teaches care families and professionals to decode the language of dementia and achieve successful behavior interventions. Go to her website at http://www.speakingdementia.com/ . Sign up for her free monthly online newsletter on dementia care by emailing her at frenagd@gmail.com .
This is how normal dementia works. The first noticeable thing that happens is that gradually you lose the ability to access your short-term memory. You know this long before anyone else notices. That’s because it’s a long slow process. By the time others notice, you have probably been unable to retain short-term memories for some years.
Having short-term memory damage means you don’t remember yesterday at all. You may not even remember five minutes ago. You well may have forgotten or become unclear about the last ten years.
That’s pretty frightening for anyone. It makes you feel unsafe, insecure, alone. You may react to these feelings in different ways. Some are angry and fearful, others depressed. Some withdraw from human contact. These are all emotional reactions to the terror that memory damage causes inside you.
As if that weren’t bad enough, growing damage to the part of your brain that does cognitive thinking begins to affect you too. It’s not that you’re becoming stupid. Or that your I.Q. has diminished. It’s that you can’t retain the steps in thinking.
Before you were ill, your wife would say, “Honey, I need to write a check for $500 for the property taxes before the end of the month or we’ll be in trouble,” and you heard, remembered and understood everything she said.
Once the damage to your brain affects the once-easy flow of thought information, your wife’s sentence might be heard in this way. “Honey, I need [forgotten] $500 for the [forgotten] or we’ll be in trouble.”
Aware that you don’t understand, you react angrily to what you think was said, “I’m not made of money. You’re always spending. I’m not giving you anything.” And you refuse to hand over the checkbook.
This is the very beginning step in learning to speak dementia. We who care for people with dementia need to develop a deeply compassionate sense of empathy for people whose very brains are betraying them.
We need to understand the terror, confusion and desolation that can sweep over them every time they are reminded they can’t remember stuff and every time they hear information or questions they just can’t follow.
Imagine it. Maybe you’re pretty bad at math. A rotten cook. Lousy at the computer. But you can remember your day and your yesterday. You can retain a whole sentence in your memory in a conversation. You’re able to take part in social life.
Now imagine this. You’re a Nobel Prize Winner. You ran the Opera House of a glittering world-renowned city. You’re a famous film star, a writer, a poet. And you can’t remember what someone just said to you. And you have no idea who they are.
Once you have dementia, all the things that once were part of your very structure are no longer there for you. You may forget your whole last twenty years, including all your attainments. You have lost your operating power, because memory, intellectual organization and life experience give that to us.
That is where we begin to learn to speak dementia. Before we ever say a word, we have to understand the losses that people with dementia are forced to live with, every day.
Then we have to step up beside them. Not in pity, but in honest admiration of how they manage to face the average day. Then we walk with them on their day’s journey, so they can be more.
Article by Frena Gray-Davidson
Frena Gray-Davidson, Alzheimer’s caregiver and author of five caregiving books, including her latest book “Alzheimer’s 911: Hope, Help and Healing for Caregivers”, available at http://www.amazon.com . Frena teaches care families and professionals to decode the language of dementia and achieve successful behavior interventions. Go to her website at http://www.speakingdementia.com/ . Sign up for her free monthly online newsletter on dementia care by emailing her at frenagd@gmail.com .