Dementions: A Blog for Care Providers
Welcome to the Dementions blog, a space for stories, tips and reflections!
Julie is a new client. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease several years ago and it has significantly impacted her ability to speak and understand language.
I’m just getting to know Julie and it’s tricky. She has great difficulty forming words and it's hard to know how much she understands. Usually, I ask people yes/no questions to get a sense of this...is your name Fred? Are we in China? Are you 16 years old? Julie tends to answer ‘yes’ to almost everything, leading me to think she isn’t grasping what I am saying. But wait…
When I ask what her recent trip was like, her face lights up and she says, “Tiny monkeys.” She shows me tons of flower photos, pointing out her favorite. How can someone with all these challenges let me know that…
She loves chocolate and Thai food
She walked on the Great Wall of China
She was a ballerina as a child
Her sister fell and broke her leg
She likes dogsitting not owning
She dislikes arts and crafts
I don’t know how Julie does it but she allows her essence to be expressed when words do not serve her. It’s in the way she laughs at something amusing, lights up looking at photo memories, and her patience with my attempts to comprehend her speech pattern. With nonverbal ease, she conveys her compassion, zest for life, intelligence, and love for her family.
Essence = the most significant element, quality, or aspect of a thing or person. Synonyms include substance, spirit, lifeblood, heart, and soul - Merriam-Webster. I don’t know Julie very well yet. We have only spent about 6 hours together but in that short time, she has expressed her essence very well. And I’m hooked.
One of the beautiful things about working with people living with dementia is that the walls we tend to put up to protect ourselves begin to disintegrate. I know this can be embarrassing and frustrating at times, but it also allows the true spirit and essence of the person to be revealed.
I am so lucky to be doing what I do now. I can spend hours with a person each time I visit as opposed to 30-45 minutes when I worked in the healthcare system. It often takes time, trial-and-error, persistence, and patience to unlock a person’s essence but that is what I aim to do. In the time they have left, it is meant to be unveiled and cherished. Even if we only catch a glimpse once and a while.