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A New Vision of Hope
for Dementia Care

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There are Routes up Mt. Dementia

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ementia Care can be the most challenging of all the caregiving experiences and can be a living nightmare for the person with Dementia.

 

Paradoxically, it can also be filled with deep connections and profoundly wonderful experiences.

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Science and medicine can inform us but they cannot show us a route up the mountain that gives our loved one any significant measure of Quality of Life.

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I believe that the best we can do in the absence of a cure is to find multiple routes up Mt Dementia. Routes that are not just disconnected snippets of advice, but offer a tested pattern of care that minimizes the difficulties and takes full advantage of the possibilities. 

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eft and Right Brain analogies are ways of thinking about the brain and its functions. Although our understanding of brain structures is more complex than a left and right brain divide, Sperry's outdated research is very helpful for grouping similar functions that correlate very well to those cognitive functions that decline with vascular dementia and those that are more stable.

 

According to Sperry's research...

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the Left Brain is associated with:

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  • logic

  • sequencing

  • linear thinking

  • mathematics

  • facts

  • thinking in words

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the Right Brain is associated with:

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  • imagination

  • holistic thinking

  • intuition

  • arts / poetry

  • rhythm / music

  • nonverbal cues

  • feelings visualization

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By conserving scarce Left Brain resources and focusing on the more intact Right Brain functions we find the beginnings of a path up Mt. Dementia

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Left Brain

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Right Brain

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Depathologizing

Vascular Dementia

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o start approaching vascular dementia differently we need to see it from a different vantage point. Perceiving it as a disease when there is no treatment is counterproductive. It gives you the downsides without any upsides. It gives you a disease with nowhere to go. 

When I was in year two of being a caregiver with my mother Betty, I did not need a diagnosis to know what was going on. I was interacting with her on a daily basis and I was accomodating for what she could not do and was learning to explore what she  could do, and what we both enjoyed doing together.

 

The diagnosis was needed to get the family on board for support because they were not interacting with her on a daily basis.

My Mother's sister Phil and her husband Tony had a terrible journey with "Alzheimer's" so I made sure that word was NEVER used by anyone, including medical people around her. If it isn't a disease what is it?

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here is an alternative. The concept of neurodiversity has taken hold around the world for those with ADHD, Dyslexia and Autism. Instead of having a narrow definition of what is neuronormal and considering everyone outside that being defined by their disease, we are learning to explore how to compensate for the downsides and then take full advantage of the benefits of how we uniquely "think."

Neurodiversity is a far more progressive way to work with cognitive impairment.

Dyslexia can be considered a non-progressive form of dementia. So similar are they that if you have dyslexia then you cannot be diagnosed with dementia in the early stages.

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Embrace Neurodiversity

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Seeking Beauty

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ow we are truly free to begin seeking other routes up the mountain, routes that we design with our loved ones to honour our values, maximize joy, playfulness, wonder, meaning, relevance and all the gifts of our imagination while remaining true to ourselves and our spiritual or religious paths till our last breath. 

Please become a subscriber and we will send out new blog posts and any updates to The Wounded Caregiver.

Best Day is where all of us meet, caregivers and loved ones.  When we as caregiver's hear, "That was the Best Day Ever," or "That was the best morning of my life," we know we've done our job well. This approach focuses on helping caregivers get to more of those "Best Days."

Return to Wonder takes full advantage of vascular dementia and its ability to open us up to wonder, awe and amazement. 

Shambhala Care is for transforming institutional dementia care into loving places that support the caregiving relationship and our loved ones right up the Caregiving Mountain to the peak of  "Imaginative Care."

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