DEMENTIA CARE
OPEN, COMPASSIONATE AND PERSON-
CENTRED CONVERSATIONS Even before the pandemic, families affected by dementia had little time to prepare for someone dying. This can be mitigated through open, compassionate and person-centred conversations with health professionals. At an early stage, the fact that dementia is a progressive condition, which can cause someone to die prematurely, can be discussed. This allows families to talk about the future in light of the diagnosis of dementia and plan for it; this includes enabling a person’s wishes and preferences for their death and dying to be known. Through this, we can gain a better understanding of both living and dying with dementia.
placed under significant strain. As dementia specialists we can support others to understand when someone with dementia may be approaching end-of-life; signs of which can include reduced need for food and drink; withdrawing from the world and becoming increasingly sleepy; and changes in breathing.
Dementia can be an unpredictable condition, so empowering professionals to be open and honest with families around how the condition may progress, can support families to plan for end of life. This can achieve a dignified death for the person with dementia and reduces complicated grief reactions in remaining family members. It can also help professionals feel they have done as much as they can to support and care for that family.
DEMYSTIFYING DEMENTIA AND THE RANGE
“Dementia is still a stigmatised condition, typified by many
losses even before the loss of the person dying.”
We also receive calls from professionals who are working with people living with dementia, around the effects of the progressing disease as well as their own feelings of bereavement when someone dies. This has been noticeable during the pandemic, when many professionals have been
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OF FEELINGS IT ENGENDERS Dementia information and support for families, and even professionals, is nowhere near as available as it should be; this culminates in an end-of-life experience which can leave families struggling to know where or who to turn to. This can intensify the bereavement experience for families.
Just as we say that every diagnosis of dementia is as individual as the person who receives it, so we can say the same about grief. Improving access and awareness of specialist, compassionate, and person-centred care and support is how we can demystify dementia and the range of feelings it engenders, from diagnosis to bereavement.
www.dementiauk.org - 33 -
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