First learn about communicating with people with dementia. We typically learn the typical phrases, redirecting people, distracting them, reorienting them, what to do, what not to do, right. years ago, they used to teach reorientation in, like nursing school reorientation was this idea that you would correct someone with dementia. So if they said, Oh, I'm gonna go home after this and go see my parents. Yeah, the answer was, no, you're not you have dementia and your parents are dead. Right?

So that was actually what they used to teach. Now you're eventually they realized, oh, man, this reorientation thing really is not great. Because it just upsets everyone. And eventually, we started teaching this idea of redirection which is asking questions about the thing getting into a nicer part of the topic, or distraction which is focusing on something new entirely. And throughout all of this, we learned that we should never lie to someone with dementia. And that's fine, but it doesn't really cut it.

And this black and white view of what Dementia Care communication is supposed to be, I think it's really difficult to teach people. So today I'm going to be talking about more of a gray area of dementia care, which I really think is what Dementia Care is. It's it's a gray area. It's hard to teach. That's why I say Dementia Care is an art form, right? Let me first go to this story.

I call it mirror notes don't work. I was moving a woman into our assisted living community a few years ago, and her daughter had put a note in her mirror and it said, Mom, you have dementia. That's why you live here now. And I saw this note and I was like, Oh, I picked up the note and I ripped it up and I Put them put it in the trash. And the doctor was like, Well, wait a minute, Why'd you do that? I said, Can you imagine waking up every morning and seeing this note in your mirror that tells you something is wrong with your brain?

Right? So that would be an example of reorientation, and most of us know that that I mean, if you're taking this class, you probably know that that's not a that's not a great thing to do. But again, what we normally teach people is redirecting people or distracting people and I'm really going to get into why that isn't fully cut it. And when you're working with people with dementia, I don't think that they fully get the job done. Which is why I teach this idea of embracing someone's reality. I started teaching what I started doing, which was embracing someone's reality.

And here we have this crazy little thing that I drew for you. which pretty much breaks it down the best that I possibly We can. Let's take an example. In our reality, we have a woman who is 85 years old. Her parents died years ago. And she retired when she's 67.

In her reality, she's 38. Her parents live nearby, and she's in the prime of her career. Now, who are we to say? Whose reality is correct? Now a lot of people would say, Well, our reality is correct. That's, that's what we need to tell her.

Right? We need to remind her that she's 85 and her parents are dead. And she retired when she was 67. What I'm saying is, no, we don't, we do not need to correct her. We don't even really need to redirect or distract her. All we need to do is live in her universe.

Wherever that universe is. We're going to go over there. We're going to take a little trip over at her world. And whenever you've spoken to someone who's living with dementia, if you've ever argued with someone living with dementia, you have real highs, right? That that doesn't work very well. And that hurt their reality is like pretty concrete, even if that reality doesn't make any sense.

We still need to choose it, why? It's healthier, it's safer. It's kinder and it isn't lying. We want to take the word lying, and we want to throw it away. It is the truth of her reality. The truth of her reality is that she's 38 her parents live nearby and she's the prime of her career.

And that's okay. I met a guy recently, who was telling me he's gonna be 90 years old, which is correct in our reality. And he was also telling me about how he was at work that day. How was he at work that day? If he's 90 years old, but that doesn't matter, because his reality has blended right. He's taken some pieces from ours.

He's taken some pieces from his and he's made it one whole thing. That's fine. That's cool, whatever his reality is, we're gonna do that. It's way easier to embrace that reality. It's healthier, safer, it's kinder, because that's where they're at. It's much easier for us to go over there than for them to come over here, because they're not going to come over here, at least not fully.

And at least not for a while, you know, even if you quote unquote, convince them of something for a little bit. Occasionally I'll have people say to me, oh, well, you know, I convinced my mom, you know, I reminded her that her parents are dead and, and she remember, okay, but how long did that last? Like? 20 minutes? Yeah, because after 20 minutes, she's back to where's my parents, where's my parents and you're back to square one. So when you take the word lying, we need to get rid of it.

It is the truth of her reality. If it's true for her, it's true for us. And I think that's where people get really hung up. They go Whoa, whoa, I don't want to lie. I don't want to make anything up. I'm not asking you to make anything up.

All I'm telling you is, if we embrace her reality, we don't need to redirect the conversation like, Where's my parents? I need to go home. Oh, sounds like you miss your parents. Let's talk about it. Now, we don't even need to do that. All we need to do is say, oh, okay, that's great.

What do you you know, what are you going to do when you get home? Or, well, let's go later. It's getting kind of late. Right? Or, Hey, your mom called earlier she said, You don't need to come home for dinner you can eat here. And that's where it starts to get a little confusing for people.

They go, Oh, well, then I'm making stuff up new. You're living in the reality that they've provided for you. And I'm going to give you a few more examples of why this makes sense. I also want to mention that even if their reality is sad, you need to embrace it. I want you to be a shoulder to cry on, not deny on. I wrote that because you know, it's, it rhymes and it's clever, but Seriously, it's true.

You need to be there for the person. Even if what they're telling you is upsetting to them. You don't want to say, well, don't worry about it because your parents died years ago. So it's this, it's over. Right? know, if they're upset that their parents passed away, you know what they believe to be last week.

Okay? If somebody came and told came to you and told you that, you know, out in normal, not dementia reality, you would be really sad for them and you'd be empathetic and you'd be there for them. And I want you to do the same thing. When someone has dementia. Even if their reality seems totally nuts to you and isn't on your timeline and doesn't make any sense to you. It really doesn't matter, you're still gonna embrace it as the airplane dilemma, and I break it down like this, because I think it's worth explaining.

As a story. I think it's much easier to understand this concept, when you really see illustrated because what we're doing on our bracings Reality is that we understand that reality has changed and work in a move with it. And we're dealing with the emotion of the situation. We're not dealing with the facts. We're not dealing with the cold, hard facts, the black and white, we're dealing with the gray area. I met a man probably about a year ago, who believed his daughter was at the airport and he was getting very agitated.

His caregivers were having a hard time keeping him in the house. Because 85 is dementia. And he thinks his daughter who isn't at this point is you know, a grown woman. He thinks she's at the airport, and that you need to ride home. So he's getting upset. He's like, Honey, I'm coming to pick you up.

And instead of the daughter saying, you know, Dad, I'm at my house, you know, or sorry, instead of saying like, I'm at the airport, she says, well, Dad, I'm at, I'm at my house. I'm fine. I don't need you to come get me. I'm not even at the airport. And now you know, her father's really upset and he says, Yeah, yeah, you Aren't the airport I'm coming to get you at the airport. So now they're going back and forth about whether or not she's at the airport or not.

And my response to this is, who cares? Who cares whether or not she's at the airport? It doesn't matter. The point is, he's worried. The bottom line is he's worried about his daughter. And she's going well, Dad, I'm not at the airport.

And he's going Yes, you are. You're out there airport say no, not is you are No, I'm not. Yes, you are. That is that didn't get us anywhere. The only place that got us was more agitation, and the fact that now he's trying to leave the house. So we really didn't do anybody any favors here.

Right? The point is, we want to embrace the emotion. embracing their reality means that you're embracing their emotion and where they're at that you're not trying to correct them. You're not even redirecting or distracting, right. You're just getting into their world, and whatever that world means to them. That's what you're going to do.

So here are the three questions, I want you to use, not the three pegs. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna talk about responses to things that you might hear from someone living with dementia. And this is particularly where it gets tricky. This is where embracing someone's reality, I think really puts you to the test. Right?

So when someone asks you a direct question, such as, where is my mom, you're thinking, Oh, well, darn, I don't want to, you know, I want to tell them their mother's dead, but I also don't really want to make anything up. What do I do? Here's what you want, I want you to do. I want you say, Where do you think she is? Where do you think this person is? Where do you think your loved one is?

And you're gonna go with whatever they say. And makes it much easier for you. You don't have to come up with anything. You don't have to make up an answer, right? Where's my mom? Where do you think she is?

Right. You're going Go with the thing that they tell you. Oh, and they're gonna say maybe I think she's at work sounds about right. She's probably at work. If they say, I think she died, you're gonna say, Yeah, you're probably right. I think she did pass away.

If they say I think she's at the store, you're gonna say, Yeah, she's probably at the store, maybe she's picking up some groceries. Whatever they say is the right answer. It really prevents you from coming up with the wrong answer saying the wrong thing. Painting yourself into a corner. And this way, you don't accidentally give them the wrong information. People like the answer that they gave you.

The best example being I did a training once where I had a staff member Tell me, you know, this woman asked me where her husband was. And I told her, I think he's probably at work. And the resident said, Well, I don't know why my husband would be at work because he's on disability. Right. So the staff member tried to do quote unquote, the right thing by embracing a reality. She just didn't know what The reality was, so she went to the wrong reality.

Here's another example of embracing someone's reality. If someone says, Oh, you know, I love dogs, I love cats, I love babies, and that they seem like they're in a stage where they want to care for a stuffed animal or a baby doll. And I'll get into a lot more detail about this later. We want to introduce the baby dollar stuffed animal by saying, what do you think about this? And I introduced this now he has this concept now because it's part of this, this three questions concept that I teach about embracing someone's reality, you're going to find out where their reality is, and then you're going to do that. You don't want to offer a stuffed dog to someone and say, Look at this dog, because they might say, well, that's not real.

Right? And then you look crazy. And then they feel crazy, because you just tried to convince them that this stuffed dog is real. So again, we're gonna let them lead us to where their reality is. And this third question you're going to use is going to help you win You want to help them? You want to do an activity you want to do something with someone living with dementia, and they're like, No, I don't want to know I don't want to take a shower.

Not I want to go out. No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do this. You're gonna hear no a lot. So how do we get around that? Can you help me?

Ask someone for help? Not Do you want to do this? Knock? Do you want that? Knock? Do you want help?

Or can you do Do you want to help me? But can you help me a very different question. It really gets people to go, Okay, well, this person needs my assistance. I guess I can help. Right? Can you help me?

So these are the three questions I want you to start using. It's really gonna help your communication skills and it's really going to help you not only find out where someone's reality is, but then dive into that reality with them. I like to say that, you know, they're driving the reality car, right, but you're in the passenger seat with with some breaks on your side and steering wheel, right? So you're along for the ride, but you're kind of providing a little bit of guidance, you've got the GPS, you are in control, but you're gonna let them feel as though as though they have as much autonomy as possible. They are living in their reality. You're gonna join them there.

And I promise it is way easier when you start doing this. This next section I have on here is an article I wrote with a little bit more information. It's some stuff I wrote on my blog, and a little bit of a deeper dive into this in written form. So I hope that you continue to learn and practice and again, this does take time this is not going to come to you immediately. You know, probably many of you have heard me speak in person before have read my blog. And still this is great refresher information because it does take time and patience and practice.