Coping with Dementia: My Personal Story

My first tip for coping with dementia may seem sort of off the wall, or obtuse, or shallow, but I'm serious: If you're elder loved one still has their wits about themselves, but they're not a card-player, then teach them to play cards.

Or maybe bingo. Or checkers. Whatever. Practice some sort of game with grandma or grandpa, mom or dad, Aunt Elsie or Uncle Earl, just in case they become afflicted with dementia some day.

The only way for me to succeed in coping with the dementia of my dearly departed mother, who was 88 when she died in October 2004, was to play card games with her.

If she didn't know how to play cards, I don't know what I would have done.

As we speak of coping with dementia, my reference here does not involve how I coped with my mother's dementia myself, personally and emotionally. That's another subject, and my basic statement would be that we gotta be strong.

My reference to coping with dementia, from experience, involves what to do when you are in the company of your elder loved one. What do you do together? I mean, you can't just sit and look at one another. Can you? That was my first thought when viewing the AC article request, "Coping with Dementia."

Compared to others, my role was triple-simple. First, Mom was in a care home and so I wasn't the non-stop caregiver. Second, she had the non-Alzheimer's type of dementia through which she still knew me. Third, she was fortunate enough to keep her shy but sweet personality, unlike others with dementia who become mean and/or depressed.

Still, when visiting, I was at a loss for what to do. Mom could remember that she graduated from St. Andrew's High School in 1932 and married on Oct. 28, 1939, for example, but she couldn't remember what was said 30 seconds prior. That meant we could not really converse. Furthermore, she could barely hear and she could barely see. All I could do was sit and hold her hand.

Then one day, in a dollar store of all places, along the wall I spied a deck of giant oversized cards. The idea to help her with coping with dementia was instant. Hmmm ...

In fact, the idea was so strong that I couldn't wait to get to the care home. Mom saw the cards, and her eyes sparkled for the first time in weeks. I laid out her favorite solitaire game, cut the deck, and she started to play. (And play well, I might add.) Finally, we had a bond we could share.

During her final months, Mom was so weak that she could only point at the card plays, and I would lift the cards and place them. When she started to miss seeing the plays that previously were obvious for her, then I knew the end was near. Still, card games were our connection until near the very end, when the angels from Hospice joined us.

Card games were our routine for more than a year as we both were coping with dementia, in our own ways. This became so meaningful that when I passed her casket and viewed her for the final time in the church vestibule, before her funeral, I placed the Queen of Hearts near her wrist.

If you're elder loved one still has their wits about themselves, but they don't know how to play cards, then teach them to play cards. Or bingo. Or checkers. Whatever. Practice some sort of game, just in case they become afflicted with dementia some day.

Does this statement now make more sense than it made at the start of this article?

SOURCES

Personal experience