I spoke with a brilliant engineer not long ago.  He has dementia, and was interested in what his future might look like; concerned, really.  I tried to give him some ideas, but mostly reassurance that as the people in his life learn how to get it right with dementia, his future will be okay.

What made the biggest impression, though, is when I shared that he will not lose his intelligence.  He took a deep breath and sat back in his chair; hearing that he would remain intelligent brought him obvious relief.

Dementia does take some things away.  It takes away cognitive skills (memory, rational thinking, attention), and these losses of cognitive skills begin to have an increasing impact on one’s abilities.

But dementia does not take away intelligence.  We have intelligent, engaging conversations on a regular basis with our companions with dementia, even well into the end stages.  But this is only possible because we know how to create a dementia supportive space in which our companions get to share and converse, with whatever skills they have available to share and converse.  (See The DAWN Method to learn how to create this dementia supportive space).

Nor does dementia take away “the person.”  I hear a lot of family members say that they are losing their person to dementia.  And I encourage folks to consider a different perspective: maybe what they are losing in their loved one is skills.  Maybe the loss is about abilities.  And maybe the real person they have known and loved is still there.  We for sure see this in our work each day; when folks with dementia have a supportive space in which to be, their true self emerges.  We make it safe to be increasingly confused, safe to have increasing needs for care, safe to have diminishing skills, safe so that they can be themselves.  Please note that I am not referring here to physical safety; instead, I am referring to emotional safety.  

The biggest losses of dementia are the ability to meet one’s own emotional needs.  And that is where we come in…

Our loved ones with dementia are not less intelligent nor less of themselves because they have dementia.  They are simply less able to do.  

There is hope in dementia.  There is beauty in dementia.  It lies in the way we provide care.

Jill

©Jill Couch