Teepa Snow talks to the Alzheimer’s Support Network about making Visits Valuable.
put your hand up we have five ways that we get information into our brain five ways start with your thumb thumbs up what you see visual information incredibly important in figuring out what’s going on around you and people with dementia will still pick up what they
see now how they interpret it may change but they’re seeing stuff what they can see changes but it’s there and for people with dementia put your thumbs up this is the number one way they get data from the world around them what they see the second way we get information from the world around you take your index finger and point it touch your ear what you hear auditory
information incredibly important but when people have dementia they start having difficulty with processing verbal data we like to do what talk the problem is talking and listening or to different processes and when people have dementia this becomes a real challenge sometimes for them to understand what we say
and yet often when we visit take your index finger this is what you like to do you like to talk and you like to change subjects and you like to talk about lots of different things well you know
I talked to Mary the other day she said she was doing really well you know her daughter up in Michigan well they’ve had bad weather up there and I mean to tell you you won’t know and the person with dementia huh you go this is your big mistake take your index finger shove it up her daughter’s in Michigan
because y’all make a mistake between the difference between comprehension problems and volume problems they don’t tend to have as much trouble with volume as they have with comprehension so when you talk too much you make it very difficult for them to follow along in a conversation and when you change subjects in the middle huh and that of course causes you to what raise your volume because you’re not thinking your automatic and
you’re stressed because you’re trying to think of what you’re going to talk about when you get there because you you want has something to talk about and that’s the kind of thing that starts it off because what I really want to do is get her up and take her to the bathroom but I know if I bring that up that’s gonna be a problem so I’m trying to think of a way to lead into this so turn to the person next to you in grin real big hey you do it okay people with dementia are not stupid
and when they pick up on your stress level they what do you what’s up what’s wrong because they’re picking up on what they see and then let’s talk about this finger one more time one of the things you’ll frequently do when you’re getting frustrated and you’re trying to help take your finger and do this to the person next to you your tone of voice changes stand up I need you to stand up stand up it is not that hard dad well good
I think that’s gonna go well I’m pretty sure my father’s gonna enjoy being fussed at by me like that and what he’s gonna say is what are you so upset about because what did he pick up on my tone of voice and he wasn’t able to follow what I was asking him to do but he sure did pick up on how frustrated I was and if he was the father of my life and
I started misbehaving like that what do you think he might do smacked me yeah and then of course we write him up as agitated and aggressive instead of responding to
what I did but I’m the one who’s normal okay so let’s go to the third way people get information from us third way take your index finger and touch the back of your other hand it’s through touch and movement our brains figure things out so when you walk around you can figure out as the ground solid is it soft is it wet is it dry it’s that thing heavy or light is it something I like or something I don’t like is it you know
what so it tells you a lot your skin and your body tell you a lot with movement so y’all can right now even with your eyes closed know whether your arm is bent or straight you know whether or not your weight is more on your left buttock or your right buttock you don’t have to think about it it’s just there
okay you also know that you need to your weight from side to side in order to not get a pressure sore y’all know how to do that without even thinking about it because your brain is so marvelous fourth way that you get information into your brain sense of smell sense of smell incredibly important now I put it on the ring finger the reason
I have it lined up on the ring finger is your wedding ring is an emotional commitment to somebody and what I want you to realize about your sense of smell it’s very emotional there’s tight emotional connections between smells and feelings old and new and so when you smell something it makes you feel a certain way and
so I can just say words and make you feel certain ways so I can say fresh-cut grass I can say lavender I can say orange fresh-squeezed orange juice I can say dog poop vomit I mean use you’re having a reaction to those things aren’t you yeah and that was just the words not the smell if you smell them it’s intense right away to the good and to the bad now
I’m bringing this up because sense of smell changes and there are some things that people with dementia don’t seem to pick up on as dangerous anymore and we seem to think they’re being ornery when in fact they’re just not picking up on it and
I want to mention them because they often result in you getting frustrated as a Care Partner number one is smoke they smell smoke and they don’t view it as dangerous it’s just they’re trying to hide the evidence because they think people will keep them from doing what they want to do they blow up something in the microwave and they go yeah well you know there’s a little bit of smoke but they’ll turn off smoke detectors so the alarm won’t go off not realizing how dangerous this is becoming the second smell they do not pick up on is dangerous which is really pretty significant is they don’t pick up on chemical smells or gas so they go out to light the grill but they forgot the the lighter they leave the propane on go back in the house to go get the lighter thing come back out and they can try to light the grill and now if you have been gone for a few seconds look for the what’s happened to the propane the Foom I will also tell
you a little space heaters that people sometimes use down in here in the wintertime not in the summer obviously although in some houses where the air-conditioner gets turned down and people don’t know how to turn the air-conditioner back up I have seen that happen in the summer time they fill up the kerosene heater and unfortunately they spill some on their pants what would you know not to do right then light the kerosene heater until you change your pants not so I can go ahead and light it because I don’t realize it’s dangerous
I could also put a glass of Clorox on my washing machine and I mean to put it in at the rent cycle because I’m doing whites a person with moderate dementia could come by and drink the Clorox not realizing it’s Clorox what would happen if you tried to put the glass near your nose you’d smell it right away and go uh-uh that’s not happening they don’t get the danger awareness the other smell they don’t pick up on is spoiled food how many folks do you know go to the early bird special get the extra because they always give you too much and take it home for later what if I leave it on the counter and forget about it for a day and then find it put it in the fridge and then two days later say oh yeah that egg salad I think I’ll have that I will also tell you as care partners you got to be careful how you clean the refrigerator you can’t clean it with me there because what you’re going to get is just scrape the green off the rest is fine there is nothing wrong with that cottage cheese and you’ll be saying tempeh is I mean smell it it smells fine you’re the most wasteful child I don’t even know why I had you you just spend money like there’s nothing that’s like what are you talking about okay the next smell I do not pick up on really significant body odor I don’t pick up on it as a problem and what happens is I go take my clothes off at night get in my PJs get up the next morning find clothes they’re in the dirty hamper just put them back on it’s real convenient there right there so I keep getting back in them keep getting back in them you come by and say you smell bad well that was a really effective verbal cue because I can tell you right now what’s gonna be the answer to that thing I smell fine what are you talking about because they don’t pick up on body odor you guys do a sniff test believe it or not y’all do a sniff test and when you check yourself out you go okay not okay okay leave it on not okay change it they’re missing that data the last one that they miss under smell and I want you to recognize this is they do this is my warning that I’ve spent a half hour already and you’re gonna need to move in just a second we’ll give you a chance last thing I do not pick up the last smell I do not pick up on urine and feces I’m not registering them as a problem you do so if I have a little accident because I don’t make it to the bathroom in time well I know you don’t want people to know about it because see that’s embarrassing and I may have the awareness of it but what I’ll do is take them off and hide them in the closet hide them in the clean clothes drawer because if I put them in the dirty clothes what would everybody know I’d wet myself so I hide them well two days later I’m looking for something to wear and I run across some clothing in their drawer in there well in that good and I’ll put them on their little staff but it doesn’t bother me all that much and I get going in them and then I get out in this weather and I’m out for about five minutes and what if somebody gonna do who comes up on me stand up just a second my lord let me are you wet I mean and this is where what are you thinking well what happened is your brains short-circuited and you automatically did what you would have done with a two-year-old here’s a heads up she’s not and that is gonna get you in big trouble because touching like that oh they don’t like that because when the sense of touch doesn’t match my expectations this is how it feels to me and so it came out of nowhere and what will I likely do smack you and so all of a sudden you’re going she just hit me I was trying to help her well it didn’t feel that way okay
