As a (corporate) volunteer, you and your colleagues may encounter people with dementia, for example during an activity in a residential care center. What can you do for people with a failing brain, and how do you communicate with them?
Sustainable Development Goals:
The lady who may just stare while cooking together, or the gentleman who wants to be taken to his old home during a walk . How do you respond to them?
Communication tips:
- Make yourself clear, speak calmly, and use short sentences. Use only one message per sentence. Wait a moment until the other person has processed what you have said.
- Smile at each other, use humor, or sing together.
- Talk about the ‘news of the day’. The ‘news of the day’ is an easy topic to talk about. For example, talk about where you work, your pet, or what you are going to do that day. Try to speak from your own perspective. For example, talk about what you ate instead of asking the resident what he or she ate. This allows the other person to listen and join in if possible.
- Give compliments! This can make someone feel that they are (still) capable of doing something, which can boost their self-esteem.
- Images from the past are more recognizable than images from the present.
- Stimulate multiple senses. Let the other person smell or touch things so that the person with dementia can better understand what you mean or what something is.
- Get their attention when you want to say something. For example, make eye contact.
- Always respect the other person;
- Try to put the other person at ease or distract them with another topic;
- Avoid correcting or contradicting them. This confronts the person with dementia with what they no longer know or can do. Don’t ask too many questions or, for example, ask them to name their children. Closed questions can also be helpful. Go with the flow;
- Enjoy the unexpected when a conversation takes a surprising turn due to an unexpectedly funny comment or a spontaneous gesture;
Ask the activity coordinator:
- If you do not understand the behavior, ask the healthcare professional who is present during the activity for help;
- If the resident is in a wheelchair, always approach him/her from the front when looking at and addressing him/her.
Many residents of care institutions receive few visits from family or friends. And because they are less mobile, it is physically (or mentally) difficult for them to go out on their own. Social isolation is a real threat. With a dose of vitamin A from Attention, you can bring a smile to their face and improve their health. This is not only healthy for the residents, but volunteering is also good for your vitality. Your contribution (vitamin A from attention) is of great value. What’s more, it’s also really fun. We hope you have a great time together!
For more information, watch these videos about Teun Toebes who lives with people with dementia, a campagne about dementia and general knowledge:
You can find much more information at dementie.nl.
Take a look at this positive story about dementia: “You can tell me a secret (I’ll have forgotten it by tomorrow anyway).”
Teun Toebes is a 22-year-old healthcare innovator on a mission to improve the world for people with dementia. He believes that everyone has the right to a beautiful, equal, and inclusive society and that this should not be taken away from you by a single diagnosis. By standing up for those who have to live with this condition, he hopes to change the future in a positive way, because the chance that this will also affect your future is 1 in 5. How? By looking at things differently! “Only if we start looking at people with dementia differently will the future be able to change, only then can the dark stigma make way for hope. Because only if we continue to see the person will they never disappear.”
