No one expected 2020 to turn out like it has. This year has required adjustments, patience, and new learning.
No one expects, or hopes, for dementia to be part of one’s own life. Once dementia is part of the equation, it requires families to adjust the way they do things, often hiring in help, or changing expectations or the ways they share time as a family. Dementia requires tremendous patience, as our friends with dementia have cognitive skills that become less effective, less efficient; it necessarily brings a slower pace to the ways we interact. And new learning is of utmost importance to help us create a dementia-aware environment for folks who become less able to manage their own environments.
The year 2020 has brought some good. Many folks have gotten much better at connecting with loved ones through technology. And I keep hearing people speak about how they have slowed down this year and spent more peaceful time with those they love.
So it is with dementia; there can be some good. When we understand and accept what cognitive skills are changing, and, maybe most importantly, understand what cognitive skills are retained, we can interact with folks with dementia in ways that lower their anxiety (and, thus, ours) and bring them a sense of security, and even happiness.
We do not pretend to understand what it is like to live as a 24/7/365 caregiver of someone living with dementia. But we do our best to bring education and training for families (in the DAWN Method), as well as much-needed respite. Respite comes in many forms: from in-home dementia specialist care for folks with dementia (which gives families peace of mind and a break….and because it is a dementia-specialist approach, we are mostly successful at becoming long-time friends and companions for our friends with dementia), to being the contact person for family and friends with questions about dementia and the loved one with dementia, to helping manage home safety, community mobility, incontinence issues, healthcare advocacy and coordination, aging-in-place consultations, and more.
2020 has been a handful. But not all bad. Dementia is a handful, but when we get it right with dementia care, it is not all bad.
We are proud of what we are doing at Better People Care to help dementia have its good, to not be all bad. We are grateful to walk alongside folks with dementia, and folks living the 24/7/365 life of caring for them. We are with you, and we are in the business of hope.
Holding hope,
Jill
© Jill Couch
