by Irene Adams
“I have dementia, I’m not stupid.”
This phrase kept resonating with me when I attended a workshop on Saturday, Feb. 21 at Christ the King Church on Loch Lomond Road in Saint John.
Facilitated by Angela King, MTS, ARCT (Pedagogy) who is a dementia care and education specialist, consultant and spiritual care practitioner, the workshop was a collaboration between the Anglican Saint John Hospitals Chaplaincy and the Parish of Fundy and the Lakes through the diocesan shared ministry budget.
The goal of the workshop was to deepen our awareness of the disease, enhance communications between the patient, their caregivers and family members, and learn how to transform everyday interactions.
By focusing on relationships and the role we play in the life of someone with dementia, we were able to go beyond the clinical diagnosis and understand the disease from the perspective of someone caught up in the unsteady and often messy life with dementia.
Over the course of four hours, Angela led our group through a process of understanding the disease, along with the changes that occur in the brain during the progress of the disease and what these changes mean to the patient and the caregivers.
We learned the difference between normal aging versus atypical aging — and that experiencing aging that is not normal doesn’t necessarily mean dementia: there are often other causes at play.
However, all too often, there is a sense of panic when personality and/or behaviours are different.
People are reluctant to get tested and hear the dreaded diagnosis — “dementia” — and may miss the opportunity to understand and be prepared for what is to come.
Before the workshop, I associated dementia primarily with a breakdown in mental capacity. How little I really knew about this disease!
There are very real physical manifestations in how the brain processes data: peripheral vision changes along with depth perception; auditory skills are diminished. It may be difficult to identify what sounds actually are and whether or not they are important.
Noise levels can be overwhelming for a person with dementia. Visual contact is important to activate auditory awareness and reduce perceived threat.
We were taught to use a “hand-under-hand” technique to connect with the patient and provide physical support when motor skills are diminished.
Angela challenged us to think about dementia through our relationships with ourselves, with others, with creation, and with the Holy Spirit.
Faith communities may be well equipped to hold and nurture these relationships by using connections familiar to us in our everyday worship: gentle words, poetry, prayer, scripture, stories, hymns, and rhythms.
We don’t need more — we need to understand how to use what we already have.
Most of all, we need to understand that the person we love is not stupid, they have dementia. They are still there and they need our comfort, our love and our support.
We need to understand that along with everything else happening to them, they are also frightened by what is going on — within themselves and the environment around them that is changing and fading in their world.
“Practice the pause” is what Angela told us — take a deep breath before reacting. Be spirit-centred.
Three of us from the Parish of St. Stephen attended the workshop, with an early morning start for a 9 a.m. workshop. I think we all agreed that we learned a lot, understood more than we did before and were ready to think about the disease in terms of relationships and a spirit-centred approach.
Angela is a dynamic speaker and has a passion for her subject matter. If the opportunity to attend one of her workshops arises, I strongly encourage you to do so.
Understanding the disease is important, but how we approach it might make all the difference.
Two more similar workshops have been planned:
The Parish of St. Stephen at Christ Church Hall on Saturday, May 30 – 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
The Parish of Hammond River at Holy Trinity on Saturday, Oct. 3 – 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Photo Captions:
1. An interactive dementia workshop held Feb. 21 saw lots of people gathered to learn about the 130 different types of dementia diagnoses and how dementia affects the five senses.
2. The Rev. Rob Pitman and others learning about the changes in the field of vision of dementia patients.
3. Angela King and Canon Paul Ranson demonstrating Hand-under-Hand™. This is a Teepa Snow-developed, gentle, supportive method for assisting people with dementia with daily tasks like eating, grooming, or brushing teeth.
Submitted photos
I wish I could have attended, but I live over 2 hours away. My wife was diagnosed with Frontal Lobel Dementia in 2020, I was able to keep her home until December 2024. She is currently in Nursing home care, the hardest decision I ever made. But with faith in God and living everyday in the spirit I wander through.