#BTColumn – Dealing with dementia

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Jade Gibbons

Oliver James in “Contented Dementia” likens the human mind to a photo album.

“Think of the album as the place where each new memory is stored. The photographs represent individual memories. The ones on the latest pages are the most recent, the photos near the beginning of the album are the oldest.”

He elaborates on this idea by indicating that when a memory is stored, there are two components. First, there are facts of the photograph and then there are the emotions associated with the facts.

These feelings can be divided into two categories: those that are acceptable (characterised as green), and those that are, in stark contrast, wholly unacceptable (characterised as red).

By James’ account, the challenge someone with dementia encounters in navigating everyday life is that they have lost the facts associated with memory and only have the emotions. They have feelings-only, fact-free photographs which he refers
to as ‘blanks.’

In the absence of facts, a person suffering with dementia will rely solely on their feelings to navigate a situation. This can be very challenging for all parties involved. So here is David Roach’s perspective on how to deal with dementia.

April 2013

“I like to think of myself as a bullfighter.” David smiles. “So, he’s coming at you with a lot of power and a lot of speed. But with the cape, not that I could do it myself, that gives him a bigger target.”  Holding his hands up like there is something between them, David moves them back and forth.

“But he doesn’t know, in going for the target, that I’m going to turn it around and spin while he uses all his energy. And you spin and stay in there until you wear him out or change him. In the end, he will fall.” David lets his hands drop to the table.

“That’s how I think when someone says to me that I can’t do something… That’s why to some extent now, I don’t want to go into it too deep, like what I am dealing with, I think every day I can turn it around. You know what I’m saying.” He stops until I have made eye contact with him, “what I’m doing now” then glances to Gwen.

“I think every day that I can turn it around, and I think that if I can hold out long enough that it will come true. I may be wrong, but that’s how I choose to think. All the time, so therefore it doesn’t ummm . . . ” His voice breaks a little bit. His eyes are wet, “Worry me too much. My friend Webster and I, we have a saying: ‘If you know you know, you know.’

“People may not know. You might be walking down the street and people may think this is an old bloke, this may not be the best example, someone may think I think I can take him. And I’m thinking that’s what you think, yeah. I’m an old man, I’ve lived my life; I don’t care.

“So if you think, you being a young man, you have your life ahead of you and you want to come up against me then, we’re in two different ball games. I’m saying I don’t care, I’m ready.

“You see, so when you know you know, you know. That’s the deepest thing, because when you know who you are, you don’t care. ‘Cause you’re going to set out to accomplish it and even, at the other extreme, I know this may seem a contradiction, but you can face the future even if you fail because you gave it your best. We can face the future together, ain’t that right dear.” Putting his arm around Gwen, he kisses her on the cheek.

In closing, I’d like to highlight that not all the memories we have are our own. Things from the earliest of our existence, the dawn of our lives, we rarely remember for ourselves.

None of us quite entirely remember what we were like when we were two or the things we did and said.

Sometimes, however, someone tells us a story of our younger selves. And if it’s a story that they particularly like, they tell it over and over and over again.

Until eventually, we have the memory. We know of this really clever thing that we did, and not because we remember the event itself. But because we remember the story and the story becomes the memory.

Jade Gibbons is an arts and business graduate with a keen interest in social issues and film-making.