When the Loop Breaks: What Comes Next in Dementia Connection

If you’ve read my earlier reflections on looping in dementia, you’ll know I came to see it not as a symptom to endure, but as an attempt to connect, a person using what they still remember to reach toward the now. But there’s another part of the story I want to share, what happens after the loop.

For a long time, my dad would ask me, over and over, “Do you know what I used to do?” And every time, the answer was the same: he had been a driving instructor during his national service. It was a true memory, and one he clung to.

What I came to realise was that these moments weren’t just repetition. We were on a journey, someone was driving, and even with dementia, he picked up on the social cues of that situation. In his mind, the way to connect was to talk to the driver. And that memory, that identity, was what he reached for. It was a genuine social instinct, expressed in the only way he still could.

Once I understood that, it changed everything. I stopped bracing for the repetition and started meeting him in that moment, every time. Sometimes I’d playfully pretend I was psychic, say “Let me guess…” and he’d laugh with real delight. One of my most treasured memories came from that loop. Not in spite of it, because of it.

But then, eventually, the loop stopped. Not because the need had gone, but because the memory itself had faded. That anchor was no longer within reach.

And that’s the part we don’t talk about enough.

The need to connect doesn’t disappear. It just gets harder to express. When the loop breaks, the desire remains, unspoken, unfulfilled, often misunderstood.

That’s when we have to reach further. Not wait for the question or the story, but offer a new way in. A visual cue. A shared rhythm. A moment of sensory recognition.

This is why we do what we do. Our activities are designed to help you go first, to offer something the person can respond to, even when the words are no longer there. Because that need for context, connection and safety never leaves.

Looping is a form of connection ,and when it fades, it’s our turn to reach back.