Our Homes Hold Memories, Slowing Dementia

Walking into Peter’s home to learn more about his immediate need for home care allowed me to uncover the miracle of his situation. The family is worried that their father can no longer live alone. He had recently taken his car out to get his haircut and forgot where he was. He was lost in his town for hours before the family knew where their father ended up. By taking the keys away, Peter could no longer drive to his local stores or his favorite barber.

Peter feels that he has lost his independence. Now he is scared to take the car out of the driveway, and there it sits. Fear leaves an impression, and our brains stop us from doing the things we used to. Fear becomes the barrier, the wall, and the memory of activities and freedoms we can no longer allow ourselves to take part in.

The items in your parents’ home will give clues to the memories of the past. These photos, furniture, and items in their familiar place will become reminders of memories we have from our lives. Peter has trophies from his time as a toastmaster. He spoke to a group of people to show appreciation for others. He had a guitar hanging on the wall. He had dismantled them and reassembled them to see how they worked. The strings and the shape of the guitar were all intact. He always loved music, and so he taught himself how to read notes, pasted sheet music on the wall, and then played his favorite songs. Music is a beautiful anchor that stimulates happy memories from the past.

All parts of the brain are stimulated by different senses, thoughts, and triggers. Our fight-or-flight is triggered by our need to survive. Our memories are constructed by layers of embedded stories and circumstances that turn into pathways in our brains. We use logic to recall and utilize these pathways; they are the foundation of who we are. As we age, we collect images, music, crafts, and photos that we keep in our homes. In Peter’s situation, he built recall outside his brain and positioned them throughout his house. He extended his memories to the walls, furniture, sculpture, and paintings all around him. We can collect queues that support recall, that re-establish neural links, and support our identities from the things in our homes. Dementia is present, but we stabilize and slow the progression.

Traumatic events of our past leave deep scars in our neural pathways. Memories that give us pain seem to fade over time; however, they are often covered by layers of new memories and thoughts that help us cope. As we age, these layers can fall away in time, uncovering a hurt that has been buried for years. The loss of a child is a traumatic event. Peter lost a daughter, but could not remember whether it was his daughter or his son’s daughter. He would recall memories from the past and confuse them with other memories from his life experiences, his children’s lives. He could not communicate the whole traumatic event as it happened. Years of suppressed, painful thoughts had fragmented the true events. The true story was lost, but the traumatic feeling of that time persisted. The defense mechanism is in place but fading. He searched for the memory but confused himself. The layers are coming off, our self-defense that makes us whole is falling away, and the pain returns.

I believe we all cope with memories of loss, some more traumatic or memorable than others. As we age, dementia creates a reverse pattern of aging and brings us back to a childlike stage of life where our brains revert to an early stage of learning. To manage the stages of Dementia, a caregiver needs the tools to identify these patterns and help the loved one through new coping strategies.

Compassionate Memory Care certifications build on the last four stages of a loved one progressing through these stages.

Author: Boyd Lowry, President Owner of FirstLight Homecare of Bergen County