Thinking about a person with dementia

I have been going over in my mind my experience of being with someone with advanced dementia and getting to know her and getting to be a friend. The best analogy I can think of to be how you would be meeting a smallish wild animal.You approach cautiously but not fearfully.It will be important to be in good contact with your body.It's not only because a fear but it's a good way to be with people to be feelingly inside your body. After that you can speak to them it seems but there is no hurry at all. I also said to this particular lady that if she kept screaming for more than five minutes. and I would tell her that I will not stay in her room and then I would go and I would say I will come back tomorrow or soon anyway the next day I never made a time because how she was varied. And I could say the same of myself. it was very slow progress which I heard her talking to herself. she was saying that I the writer am a very special person. I am one of a kind so I have become part of her inner world I think. I suppose if you are also resident in nursing home it puts you on a level footing. not in a position of authority over her. and I had experienced the suffering and the loneliness and long nights. but I was lucky because I had my writings and I had friends who were emailing and I had friends who were emailing me. Sometimes we spoke on the phone. several of the people including this one told me how much still long to die. it's not just the dementia it's the boredom. If only we were encouraged to develop interests before we reach this part of our lives. What's on the television is not enough. My grandfather had a dog when he retired from the coal mine. The dog died just a few days before he did. Goodnight grandad

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Meeting older people

Image
 Until recently I had never met anyone with dementia. Now I know three people although one of them died recently. It was interesting that they had the same diagnosis it's affected them in very different ways. One woman who had been a teacher and studied English literature at university tells me things about the other people she livedbmwith which I believed at the beginning. When she said that she could read the news on the ceiling I understand that I must be aware that not everything she tells me was absolute truth. She. never forgot to ask me how my family were and remembered the details. Another lady was normal some of the time but then at other times she was screaming,help me and her face looked full of bitterness. She had one need or something if you wanted the carer to do but then would have another one 5 minutes later so even if someone has just been to see her she wanted someone else to come these two women could not walk independently. I think that added a lot of strain and
Read more

Intimacy and friendship

Image
Although living in a care home can be extremely lonely, i it's possible to get very close to somebody. I got a very close to a lady of 100 who had dementia but it took time. the start with qu she the she was aggressive because I could not do what she wanted, but gradually got to trust me. after about 8 months she said to me one day that she knew it was me who was putting her blanket around because she said you are so gentle. then she said I love you. when she had been asking me to kill her ;that was quite a big advance. despite the fact that I had to leave the Home I don't think it's the wastr of time spending it with her. I think the fact that she felt she loved me which I think was genuine is good experience for her. despite the horrible boredom and frustration of her illness she was still able to make contact with another person and to be grateful for what she was receiving and I think even that small amount of care would give her spirit some comfort. Coming back i
Read more

Dementia is physical illness

Image
 I have been visiting   two people with dementia. One who shouts and screams a lot is quite rational if you can get used to her and calm her,  and be  present with your body. Sometimes she likes to hear me sing,  to talk about her childhood  At other times she will say that But at times she can't control herself she can't listen and have a conversation so she is able to reflect.she can't walk and at the moment she is in her room all day. Extroverted so she doesn't like to be alone all the time but sometimes I've heard the staff sayings of someone in a similar situation. We don't do one-to-one caring here. We have got a lot of other people times look after. One-to-one caring is what you need and you could only get that in a different kind of home As it happens  there are fewer people here than there were. I think there may be something wrong and they're not taking new people so it should not be so difficult to care for someone like this. But on the other han
Read more