8: Excess Disability

  • Understand how to learn a “new” language
  • Accept the last and only “voice”

Learn a “new” Language

We must make attempts at learning their “language”, because we can’t expect patients to relearn “our” language.

Observe their behavior.

Allow and support all behavior in persons with dementia- the “good” and the “bad”.

Try to figure out when and why it occurs so that we can make more dangerous forms of communication (e.g., aggression) unnecessary.

Exercise

Please think about the following behaviors to figure out what they mean. Click on each = to see one of the possible meanings of these behaviors.

Grabbing their head = “I have a headache”

Refusing to bathe = “I have a fever and/or chills.” Or, “I was almost killed by drowning when younger.” Or, “I would like to be bathed by person X and not by person Y.”

Grimaces = “I’m in pain”

Smiling ear to ear = “I like what you’re doing”

A slumped over body posture = “My medication is making me feel groggy”

A “perky” body posture = “Things couldn’t be better”

The last and only “voice”

One day all will be lost to the disease.

Even though so-called “problem” behavior is disruptive, it might very well be the last and only “voice” the individual has left.

This “voice” is the last and only way to know whether a person is in pain or otherwise suffering.

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