BY DAN HILDEBRAN
The program manager for Alzheimer’s Association’s Central and North Florida Chapter told a Lake Region civic group that the worst thing you can say to a person with dementia is to ask the person to come out of their reality.
Donna Lee spoke to the Keystone Heights Rotary Club about her organization’s services, including a 1-800 hotline, caregiver support, and training for first responders to deal with people with cognitive decline.
Lee said that many times, the adult children of dementia patients are the caregivers for the patient and that when the patient talks like they are living years or decades ago, family members erroneously try to correct the patient.
She said that one example is a father with dementia who asks where his deceased wife is during the Thanksgiving family gathering.
“When he asks about his wife, who passed away six years ago, they say, “I’m sorry, Dad. She passed away,” Lee said. “Now he has to relive that tragedy again.”
Lee said if her father had Alzheimer’s or dementia and asked where his deceased wife was, Lee would tell him, “She’s not here right now.”
“I’m not lying to him,” the program manager added. “She’s not here right now, but I’m also not traumatizing him.”
Lee also recounted some advice she gave to the wife of a retired traveling salesman experiencing cognitive decline.
The spouse told Lee that even though her husband had been retired for two decades, he expected a packed suitcase and airline tickets by the front door when he woke up in the morning.
“Now, even though he’s been retired for 20 years,” Lee said, recalling the situation, “he wakes up, he’s still looking for a suitcase and plane tickets, so when it’s not there, he’s angry, starts throwing things and fighting with her because he thinks he’s living 20 years prior, still working.”
Lee said she advised the wife to pack a suitcase and leave it by the front door. The program manager then found a website where she could print authentic-looking plane tickets that the spouse could put on top of the luggage.
“Three days later, she calls me back and says, you just solved our whole problem,” recalled Lee. “She said, I took those tickets and put them on top of that suitcase. I put in shoes, a change of clothes, and toiletries, things he would recognize if he opened the suitcase. Put it by the door, put the plane tickets on top.”
Lee added that, according to the wife, her husband woke up, went to the front door, picked up the fake tickets, put them back on the suitcase, and asked, “What’s for breakfast?”
“She said, ‘This is the first morning in, like, five years I have not woke up to a fight.”
