Families often share, when speaking about their loved one with dementia, “He just won’t get up out his chair.” Or, “I can’t seem to get Mom out the door for a walk anymore.” When I suggest to my friend Lola that it is a beautiful day for a walk and that I wonder if she would like to join me,…
Last Sunday, I spoke with my friend Nan who lives in Houston. She is eighty-five years old and lives alone in the home she and her late husband moved into decades before. She is healthy of mind and body, except for a recent seizure that left her restricted from driving. Her two daughters live close, are attentive, and see her…
Current dementia care most often has “controlling (unpleasant) dementia behaviors” as its goal. But I would like to suggest that we can do better; that an approach of “managing the environment” is the right goal. Let me see if I can explain. When our approach is that of controlling dementia behaviors, it puts us in a position of responding to…
Prestige: n. “the respect and admiration that someone gets for being successful or important” My guess is that most folks would not say that they have earned the term “prestige”. We might think of this term attached to the notion of notoriety or fame or power. But per Merriam Webster, it is more simple than that. Every person wishes to…
