Page 76 - BusinessWest May 1, 2023

“You laugh about it with her, because she tells me these wacky stories,” she went on. “Her parents have been dead, but she’ll say, ‘oh, my mother wants you to come over for dinner.’ “I’ll say, ‘oh, how is your mother? I like your mother; tell her I said hello.’
“Her husband, on the other hand, keeps saying, ‘your mother is dead!’” she continued. “We need to stop that because it doesn’t mat- ter. She doesn’t remember and she doesn’t care, and in in her head, her mother is alive. That’s fine. Who does it hurt?”
Overall, she said it’s important to try to communicate with a pos- itive spin, rather than a negative one.
Indeed, instead of telling someone with dementia that they are not supposed to be going outside, when they suggest that they want to do so, one should instead stay positive and suggest that this per- son can sit outside when the weather is better.
And some form of comfort is what those caring for people with
Dementia
Continued on page 27
>>
As she talked about those suffering from dementia and how those caring for them should approach daily conversation and activities, Cardillo said it is important to keep them engaged and to focus “on what they can do, not what they can’t do.”
This brings her back to the concept of habilitation therapy, which, she believes, has benefits, and many of them, for those living with memory loss, their caregivers, family, and friends.
“It’s important to keep people meaning- fully busy and not just silly busy,” she told BusinessWest, adding there is a big differ- ence between the two.
Elaborating, she said that television is not a good option.
“We don’t want to put people in front of a TV all day, because it’s ... not good,” she said. “It doesn’t make them happy camp- ers. It doesn’t mean that TV is bad, just not as a babysitter all day.”
Instead, such individuals should be involved in activities that speak to who they
are, who they were professionally, and what interests them.
“It’s really important to know what people did in their work,” she
explained, “because they still retain some of those skills, and it’s still a part of who they are as an identity. For those who were teach- ers, give them papers to correct; you come up with things that they can do.
“I had someone whose father was a retired electrician,” she went on. “He had a manual of electrical ... something; it was bigger than the New York City phonebook. He looked through those pages every day. I don’t know if he knew what was in it — I sure didn’t — but that gave him comfort.”
“It’s really important to know what people did in their work, because they still retain some of those skills, and it’s still a part of who they are as an identity.”
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