What are we afraid of when we’re young? In Roy’s case, his fear of being left alone was creating a disruptive problem. But Roy was not a young boy; he was a kinder and gentler older man in a care home. His Alzheimer’s disease was gradually affecting his memory even more; making him fear being alone and his very bad eyesight was not helping either.
Roy’s fear of being alone was creating such havoc at the care home—besides calling for his mother, he gradually became upset and screamed, yelled and disrupted everyone’s day. He wanted someone, anyone to be with him at all times. Having someone with him would calm him but unfortunately not always possible, because the staff had too much to do and too many other people to care for to be able to put his fears at ease and accompany him.
His loneliness and fear of being alone were clear to us, but what to do? An interesting notion occurred to me. Roy loved animals so much and since I usually brought my gentle and obedient dog (Basil) to work at the care home, I figured out a plan.
I went over to Roy and asked him if he would like to look after my dog for me, while I attended to my other duties in the near by office. He was thrilled! He sat quietly holding tightly to the leash, feeling very useful and important, and instead of yelling out, he spoke with my dog, saying “nice doggy; you’re such a good doggy.” Even without a peep out of the dog he felt like someone was there beside him, listening. He felt he had good company, and he mostly loved that he had a presence of a dog because he always had a dog in his life while growing up.
This was not the final solution, though. I did not always bring my dog to work with me, and often on those days his fears came back and he became disruptive once again.
It was time to think creatively. With Roy’s very bad eyesight, we decided to try an idea to provide him comfort. We found a large stuffed dog and put a leash on it. We brought the dog over to Roy, sat it by his leg, and gave the leash to him. I said, “Hi Roy, would you kindly look after this wonderful dog for me? I know you always do a great job at looking after dogs.”
As always, Roy was thrilled to help out and have the presence of something there beside him. He was not aware the dog was not real. With this new creative idea, his needs were now able to be met any day of the week. This creative idea worked for Roy because of his advanced dementia, poor eye sight and his love for dogs.
It’s important to understand that many people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease can revert, back to their childhood memories and/or fears and thus behaviours can surface. For Roy, it was the fear of being left alone and needing familiarity. For others, it could be the fear of darkness, fear of thunderstorms, fear of loosing things or even the fear of critters in the closet. As caregivers, we must be very aware and sensitive to this, and work towards coming up with creative solutions to ease their concerns in order to best manage these behaviours.
