Home Care for the 21st Century

Alzheimer's and Dementia Series: Part 5

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Editor's Note: This is the last of a multi-part series on Habilitation Therpay for Alzheimer's and Dementia, all by our Director of Care, Deborah Bier, PhD. These articles first appeared on www.PsychCentral.com, where Dr. Bier is their Alzhiemers & Dementia columnist. Psych Central is the Internet’s largest and oldest independent mental health social network.

Truths & Lies I Told My Father

A person with dementia can be said to be inhabiting a different world with a different reality than the rest of us. Habilitation Therapy (HT) tells us that they cannot leave there to be with us, no matter how much we may want them to. (Alzheimer’s Association, 2011) It is the job of care partners to be with that person by traveling to their world. This is done by understanding what they are experiencing, and respecting — never negating — their experience.

If, in the world of a person with Alzheimer’s Disease or a related dementia (ADRD), she is 8 years old (not 80), and waiting for Mother to pick her up after school to go home and milk the cows, then that is the world to which care partners must travel. It doesn’t matter a bit that Mother died 50 years ago because that is not true in the reality where the person with dementia is living... (see the rest of this article here)