Neuro Note: Demensions of Dementia
I have explored the article, Should You Play Along With Dementia Patients’ Realities? by Carol Bradley Bursack, who explains the lengths she goes through to ease unnecessary stress and tension by attending to her father's Dementia-induced delusions. The author's father is a WWII veteran, who survived a major head injury while serving time during the war, developing scar tissue in the affected area that eventually led to his development of Dementia symptoms and progression over time. Bursack mentions that she acts as her father's personal assistant, aiding him in the many endeavors that his delusions lead to, like making fake awards and degrees, giving him the materials to draw out business plans, making business cards, and even tending to his worries about living in a war zone during WWII.
I appreciate this article because it gives me and other readers insight into the lives of caregivers and family members of clients with Dementia and delusions. Having helped a person daily who had psychosis-induced delusions, I can relate to the choices that the author has to make when guiding her father through his reality and when it is necessary to challenge that reality. During the time I was visiting my friend, who was having a bipolar manic episode, I often struggled with whether it was right or wrong to play along with his delusions. Similar to the author, I found that by allowing safe delusions to play out, my friend could feel productive and fulfilled by participating in the activities that his delusions drove him to do.
This article aligns with many areas of our course; it helps readers to see a few different sides of Dementia and how a client's occupations are still at the center of their everyday life even if they are experiencing delusions or differences in reality. This article taught me and is a good way to teach others that Occupational Therapists need to be able to adapt quickly to produce interventions that would be meaningful and appropriate for a person whose perceptions and beliefs may be changing. While many symptoms of Dementia are labeled the same for our clients, they are often presented in different ways; this is why it is important to keep our treatments client-centered so that we can engage with our clients in ways that are meaningful to them on a day-to-day basis.
An example of this is explained in OT Potential's interview with Lauren Jones, who works at an inpatient psychiatric hospital and describes her experiences treating clients with psychosis. One of her clients, who was psychotic, believed she was a celebrity and was looking to find new jobs because she was moving to a new area. In this situation, Dr. Jones helped her client set up a profile on a job search site, which allowed her to apply to jobs in the area she was looking for. Although the client applied for jobs as a celebrity, which in reality, she was not qualified for, she was still able to work toward looking introspectively at her strengths/weaknesses, building a profile/resume, applying her search skills, and filling out applications during this process.
Link to this podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/03aT9voI7QTYEQIqKu1OAh?si=QPDsEU4nQoiat6UJdpbl9A
Should you play along with dementia patients’ realities? (n.d.). Www.agingcare.com. https://www.agingcare.com/Articles/playing-along-with-dementia-realities-121365.htm
#21: Client centered care, psychosis, and OT with Lauren Jones (CE Course). (2021, November 22). Open.spotify.com. https://open.spotify.com/episode/03aT9voI7QTYEQIqKu1OAh
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