Once dementia is the elephant in the room you are thrust into the world of experiential learning.  Teepa Snow suggests that you need to become a detective to try to figure out what is going on.  I would liken the task to trying to find your way through a maze with  your eyes shut.  Somehow you just have to figure out a way to go on your journey with this dreadful condition.

Before our journey started I had already dipped my toe into the water with dementia.  Jus after dad died my brother’s behaviour began to puzzle the rest of the family.  His memory became extremely poor and his behaviour strange.  J had spent a life time in the car industry and he could take a gear box apart with his eyes shut.  Whenever I had a problem with an old banger I only had to pick up the phone and J would be round in a flash  to get me back on the road.  J was now putting diesel in his petrol fueled car.

I recall shortly after dad died I couldn’t make sense of conversations with J.  He couldn’t grasp things or remember our plans for dad’s funeral.  He seemed to have to write everything down on bits of paper.  His wife was finding him difficult to deal with at home and began to seek diagnosis.  You’ve probably guess by now: J had Alzheimer’s disease.  Following ‘attacking’ a carer during a period of respite he was Sectioned and has been in a Nursing Home for the last three years.

With both my brother and mother suffering from dementia I began to look into the condition from a number of perspectives.  That was my ‘cover story’ here as I already had concerns about M’s memory.  Fortunately, a local college ran a free Distance Learning Course: ‘Understanding Dementia’.  This gave me a basic understanding of the condition and the interactive nature of the course helped me to consider what might be happening to M.

Once M suffered stroke I curtailed my involvement in the Anxiety and Depression Group that I had helped to set up at our Medical Centre and jumped ship to the Memory Service.  I reckoned that inside involvement could only help our cause and my induction involved attending a Dementia Friends Course.  K the Dementia Engagement Officer taught me a valuable lesson during the course: the emotional memory remains in tact.  Only this week her message helped me to realise how important it is to grasp the importance of the emotional memory.

M sat in the dining room crying over events from almost 20 years ago. The tears flowed as she remembered an incident where she had upset her son by requesting him not to visit on Saturday’s, as it was one of my contact days with my three children.  She recalled so vividly his eyes filling with tears as she told him to stay away.  Her emotional memory still there, even though 5 minutes later she made a second cup of tea because she had forgotten where she had placed her earlier brew.

So dementia comes into your life and you have to feel the way through the maze on your journey.  My advice is to be guided by Teepa become a detective and also learn braille: take every opportunity you can to figure your way out of the maze.  You may make many wrong turnings as you seek your way out of the maze but at least you will have something to guide you on your way.