Have you ever parked your vehicle in an underground parking spot and then forgotten which level or what stall you parked at? Have you ever had to search rows of parking to find your vehicle? Annoying isn’t it? This very thing happened to Lorette. She was searching and searching for her car and puzzled that she couldn’t find it…
At a recent workshop I gave on Cracking the Dementia Code, a story was shared by one of the participants as they wanted to know what they should do if this same situation happened again.
This participant’s client named Lorette, a sweet senior lady with early Alzheimer dementia, lived in her own home and attended monthly seniors group. Sometimes fun bus trips were arranged.
A Picnic With Lorette
After a wonderful picnic outing one summer day, it was time to go. The staff and volunteers were cleaning up and gathering people to get back on the bus. While Lorette gathered her things and went down to the underground parking lot. A couple of volunteers went looking for her. They saw her wandering up and down the rows of cars looking very puzzled and confused.
They approached Lorette and tried to get her to go upstairs to the bus. She refused and became agitated. The more the volunteers insisted, the angrier Lorette became. “Lorette, the bus is leaving without you. You must come upstairs,” they told her. Lorette’s response was “No! I’m going home now. I’m not coming with you.” Her answer was puzzling to the volunteers, as they said “we are taking you home, on the bus.” Again, Lorette stood her ground and would not go.
Understanding The Reason Behind
As we were discussing the situation in the workshop. The participants in the room started to share the possible reasons WHY Lorette had gone to the garage. The strongest possibility was that Lorette was looking for her own car to drive home. She must have forgotten she came to the picnic on a bus. In fact, Lorette did not drive at all. Because of her dementia, she hadn’t driven for a few years now.
Understanding the reason Lorette may have been hesitant to follow the volunteers. Is because she really believed she arrived with her car. The discussion turned to how the volunteers could have made her feel supported and reassured. So that Lorette won’t feel upset and react with anger. The group came up with many creative ideas on how to get Lorette back upstairs without much upset. There were ideas such as telling her, “Lorette, why don’t we go upstairs to see if we can find someone who can help us look for your car.” Or “I wonder if you left your car at home because you don’t like driving in heavy traffic? How about we go check to be sure. If not, we can come back down to look for it with you.”
Sometimes we may need to use some Therapeutic Reasoning™ to help out. Do you have any other ideas on what you might say or do to help Lorette? Help her come willingly in this type of situation? Feel free to share with us.
The situation with Lorette appeared to be an easy one to decipher. But not all circumstances are. If your loved one with dementia has you puzzled over their behaviour and your detective questions are not leading you to answers, please feel free to call us at 778-789-1496 for some assistance.
Karen 🙂
Karen Tyrell, CDP, CPCA
Personalized Dementia Solutions
www.DementiaSolutions.ca
