Wednesday, March 19, 2014
More on communicating with a person with Alzheimer's
Some previous posts have included ways I found to communicate with my favorite person with Alzheimer's, my father. Caregivers can easily become frustrated with a loved one's incomprehension or irrational fears. In this article on Caregiver.com, Malika Brown offers her suggestions as well.
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This is a good article. Whenever I visited Nana, I would go with her train of thought, not mine and didn't have expectations that it would be sequential or, eventually, even coherent. The hardest time came when she lost the ability to form any understandable words and seemed to speak gibberish. I could tell that she wanted to be understood, and so I came up with phrases that I used with my kids when they were babies: "Tell me more.", "That is so interesting!" "Really?!" Her eyes would shine with happiness at my responses, which would make my visit easier.
ReplyDeleteWhat a compassionate solution to the problem of her lack of words, Kris. That her eyes shone, I think, meant she felt your love. Sweet.
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