A little, tiny miracle..

This is what I think, they are not lost; those with Dementia, not completely gone. Robbed of memory and experience, they are like they were as a child. We care for children, nurture them, allow the time for them to understand things, amuse them when they are bored, answer their incessant questions without irritation, why would we treat those with Dementia any differently? I think that this is because our own expectations can’t keep up with the changes in our loved ones.

I was lucky to have my Dad 17 years post-diagnosis; his Alzhiemer’s progressed slowly and we had the privilege of having the time to embrace who he was at each stage. The latter stages were emotionally hard; he didn’t know who I was, where he was, or what time it was. Conversation was hard, and could even make him anxious as though he was aware of what he had lost. So we would sit there quietly together, in honour of our previous relationship, but I wanted more.

My husband and I talked at length about the things that maybe we could do eventually leading us to the thought that Dad’s lived experience might be similar to our young grandson at the time, which gave us a key to try and understand him better. This led to our experimenting with different gifts for him, things our grandson would have been drawn to, that allowed him to engage and connect with us, and to be able to express himself. It was a little, tiny miracle each time, to see that these basic human needs were being addressed. We didn’t kid ourselves, we knew that what we were seeing was just in that moment, that he wasn’t ‘improving’ but we improved the quality of his life, and ours, in those moments.