Travelling With Dementia

Travelling With Dementia by Ron Cramer RN

Anyone who has taken care of a person with dementia knows that it can be a trip through time as you listen to the endless stories of days gone by through the eyes of someone who is actually there, in person, and living it as if it were right now.
Of course, you know that it is not true, at least not right now. The human in us wants to “snap them back to reality”, and tell them to stop living in the past, and come back to the present. We do it as if it is important for them to know that they were wrong about the time and place, and as if we were going to save them from some huge harm to themselves by thinking that way.
But the truth of the matter is that they are unable to come back to reality, except for an occasional fleeting moment of lucidity when they are “normal” again. Then in a flash of time, they are gone again. Back to living in the place and time of their earlier lives. The world that they see is one of a different time when they were younger and happier. Maybe life was simpler for them. They may have regressed back to when they were raising their young family. Or maybe they have gone back to childhood, or even infancy.
Dementia is a progressive disease of which there is no cure. We can slow its progression with medications if we catch it and start treating it early enough. But even this only prolongs the lucidity a relatively short time. Through its progression, dementia takes a victim’s memory backwards in time from the present to the distant past. Hideously, it leaves no short term memory at all before it finally claims the long term memory, the memories of raising families, trips, loves, careers, all the things that make a person a person. In the end, the person is left as a shell of flesh and bone. Dementia is a terminal, (fatal) disease. People often succumb to pneumonia and viruses as the body’s immune system weakens, and the nutrition required to sustain life is not consumed. Eventually, they forget to swallow, and then, finally, breathe.
But while they are still somewhat energetic, before they are really physically debilitated, before they start getting sickly, they can take a care giver on a fantastic journey through countless ages gone by with tales of childhood and youth. Families and careers. All narrated as if they were there right now, and it is all happening around them. The key is……you just have to go to where they are at the moment. Just listen to them and go with the conversation. In their minds it’s as real as you and I. You will see them happy, or sad, amused or any other emotion. Sometimes more than one in the same conversation.

Believe me when I tell you, when you’re listening to a conversation that is taking place in the past, and they “pop” in to a lucid moment, it’s amazing. Once, I was working 3-11 as a nursing home building supervisor. There was a lady who was extremely demented. She used to perpetually peddle herself around the unit in her wheelchair mumbling the same few words or syllables as if driven by a motor. She was so devoid of life around her, that everyone just stepped aside to let her go by. Even the other dementia residents. One night, she came behind the nurses station, and while sitting in her chair and moving herself back and forth with her foot like in a rocking chair, she started to talk. It was her usual jibberish at first. Then suddenly we realized that she was making sense. Like you and me making sense. She regaled us for a good ten minutes and answered questions about her life as a teacher and her students. The confused look on her face was gone, and she held her tired body up straight. It was absolutely amazing!!! What a wonderful gift. Then she slipped away again, as suddenly as she came back. She never did regain any lucidity again, and passed away a short time later. I will never forget that night. It’s one of my best memories.