Two lessons of Alzheimer's disease:
1) Acceptance is key. To deny and resist just causes problems for everyone.
2) It's about the person living with dementia. It's about whatever helps them connect with what they know and who they are in order to keep them calm and content.
When I moved to Nova Scotia from Vancouver in 2002, I learned my father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. That summer, I took up golfing so that my father could continue to golf with someone who could get him to the golf course, and watch out for him there. We had some good times playing nine holes of golf in the afternoon. That is one of the things I got right when I was taking care of him. It was about him and what he needed, about doing whatever he could still do -- whatever made him happy, made him forget about the disease affecting his brain, and his life.
Everyone knows -- even the bureaucrats and administrators -- that person-centered care is the only way to offer dementia care that is compassionate, non-harming and life-sustaining. But we are TOO slow, too concerned with budgets, to adapt our care models and our facilities to this new way (which isn't new, the UK is light years ahead of us when it comes to person-centered dementia care). When people living with dementia are calm and content, they are less likely to be volatile and violent, which leads to fewer drugs and fewer injuries for both the person and staff, which means fewer hospital visits. All of that reduces the costs, which is what matters to bureaucrats and administrators.
So I'm grateful to learn about this program (out of the UK) called "The Butterfly Model" that is making its way into care facilities here in Canada:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/butterfly-care-home-calgary-1.4857933
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