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Contented dementiaForgetting your troubles?CONTENTED DEMENTIA The title seems to be an oxymoron — how can anyone possibly experience contented dementia? Psychologist Oliver James describes a method devised by a daughter, Penny Garner, to cope with her mother’s illness. Called ‘SPECAL’ (Specialised Early Care for Alzheimer’s, but equally for all forms of dementia), it is a theory and practice that has been found to work well: the Royal College of Nursing says that dementia clients take fewer drugs and experience less distress. There is no medical cure for dementia, but the SPECAL approach induces wellbeing and makes life bearable and easier for carers and clients. It even helps to maintain the client’s unique personality, which in itself is a huge blessing for their families. The book is in three parts, with 13 chapters and an index of topics at the back that is so descriptive, in itself, that I’d recommend readers turn to it first. It’s like viewing the skeleton of the body. SPECAL uses the analogy of a lifelong photograph album to demonstrate how memory works and the changes which occur with dementia. SPECAL identifies individuals’ life themes and core beliefs, showing carers how to harness them to help the person cope with the present, without confronting them with realities that are often terrifying because they are unable to make sense of them. In this way the sufferer stays ‘contented’, not trying to process new information but living almost automatically in a past that is safely known. The book has no Christian perspective, but unknowingly espouses Christian principles, and it is this that makes it valuable and even exciting. Valuable, because Christians share the same core beliefs and, to an extent, life themes. We have sung from the same song sheet in many cases literally, and have similar life narratives. Exciting, because God is glorified as beliefs are reaffirmed. But there will be a challenge for Christians who feel that the person with dementia needs to acknowledge the truth of the present. They need to realise that when someone is literally living in the past, it is not a false past, but an actual past, full of experiences and achievements stored long before dementia. It is as true to them as today is to you. They cannot enter into our today, because of their dementia, but we can reach them and work with them in the world that is still real to them. For Christians, the blessing is that it is a world where Jesus is Lord, and the hope of heaven is real. Louise Morse, © Evangelicals Now - July 2009 |