Power-Up Friday
I am currently reviewing the copy-edited version of my upcoming
book, “Dementia Beyond Drugs: Changing the Culture of Care”, to be
released in February 2010 by Health Professions Press. Bill recently
suggested that I share some excerpts on the blog from time to time, leading up
to the publication date. So here’s a snippet from the Introduction:As I write these words, my wife and I?”now “empty-nesters”?”are
in the process of downsizing to a smaller home. I have packed old
files, mementos, and other pieces of “my life so far” into boxes. At
some point after we relocate, I will simply unpack the boxes and retrieve
the contents. But how would I feel if I opened a box and didn?Tt
find what I was looking for? What if one or more boxes were lost by the
movers and I could never retrieve that piece of my life and all of its
meaning?
This must be the dilemma of a person who faces progressive
memory loss?”the inability to retrieve important pieces of one?Ts life,
which can lead to a loss of self. After living with dementia for six
years Dr. Richard Taylor (2007) shared his experience:“Sometimes, when I am alone with my thoughts, I wander aimlessly
around the corridors of my mind. I open various doors to see if they
are still full of the memories I stored there years ago. To my pleasant
surprise, most of them seem to contain all that I remember putting in the
room. However, as I move from the past toward the present, I find more
and more empty rooms. Not only are they empty, they are dark. They
offer no clue, other than the label on the door, as to what they once
contained.”
As I reflect on this, it is all too clear to me that if we are
to provide the best care for people with dementia, we need to spend
a lot more time trying to understand what it feels like to live with
dementia. This is what I call an “experiential” approach to dementia,
and it will challenge many of the “truths” that are shared about the
disorder.More to come…
This is a necessary book, can’t wait to bring it to work with me!
Although I’m typically disinclined to look longingly to the future, February can’t come soon enough. Of course if you’d like a volunteer copy-editor . . . .
Al
I am excited about where your book is leading.
After 27 years in aging, I am now working in the mental health arena. I am finding a tremendous number of healthy people often middle-aged come into my office because they have had an experience in their current life which has resulted in accidentally opening doors to rooms that are full of tragic events. (Instead of rooms, I use the analogy of a big coat with many pockets.) These healthy people are opening pockets they closed up and either forgot about years ago or buried under other folds of life’s clothing. I wonder if people who experience anxiety with dementia are opening pockets of memories they have closed years ago and forgotten or buried. Many have never worked through the emotions surrounding those buried memories. With the onset of dementia as the good doctor describes, life’s pockets are not so easily kept shut, things just fall out hap-hasardly when a person least expects it, contributing to uncontrollable anxiety/anger/fear. Our medical solution is to provide a psych med for a psychotic disorders. Maybe the solution is to seek talk therapy when we are young? Hmmm, My door is always open!