Folding Clothes Soothes Dementia Agitation
A short pictorial story about how folding clothes calms some erratic behavior.
To truly love a person is to learn their song and sing it to them when they have forgotten it!
This is a short pictorial story about the life of a 95 years old who has dementia and tries to make sense of the frightful world she now lives in. Every day is a new day in the life of dementia as they struggle to remember who they are, who their family is, and where they come from.
While dementia affects all patients in different ways, some stop functioning altogether, while others are limited in their abilities and others have some abilities and with assistance can be productive. No matter which state a dementia person finds themselves in assistance is needed.
There have been stories where personalities have totally changed as a result of dementia. For example, a mild manner person becomes a combative animal or a very aggressive person becomes very loving or docile or someone that was sedentary becomes a wonderer, just walks out the door going nowhere in the world.
This is the pictorial story of a day in the life of my mother whose dementia was brought on by extreme stress caring for my father who had Alzheimer’s. This is just my assessment for her having dementia, as I read that dementia can come on for various reasons and stress was one of the factors.
Nevertheless, my mother on top of her dementia had a mini-stroke on the right side of her brain, which rendered her right side impaired to this very day but thank God she went from not walking to walking, not talking to talking, not feeding herself to feeding her self, not dressing herself to dressing herself. There are tons of gratitude here as I witnessed how far God has recovered and restored her mentally and physically.
However, when she was first diagnosed with the mini-stroke, the doctor assured me that she would recover if not all her function, most of them. With extended physical therapy, she probably would have but due to her age, the physical therapist and doctors felt this was as good as it could get. I disagreed and picked up the helm and continued her speech therapy.
Mother loves to feel that she is being productive because it gives her some semblance of a functioning human being. Cooking and cleaning were now a thing of the past especially after my father died. Folding clothes has become one of her favorite pastimes and she does it with such contentment.
I discovered the effect of folding clothes on dementia after Mother had her mini-stroke. The rehabilitation staff at the rehabilitation center after her hospitalization would often offer folding clothes as an option to distract dementia patients from being agitated or aggressive.
Having seen the effect of folding clothes on her dementia, folding clothes has become her norm and she is very good at it. She folds with precision and pride.
On laundry day, she has become the official clothes folder and this gives me time to do other things while she is busy. When not busy, she likes a lot of attention because she loves to chat. While she folds, I perform other tasks around the house or my in-home office work. At the end of the day, everyone feels accomplished.
Below are photos that attest to how folding laundry gives mother a sense of accomplishment, even in the face of her right hand being impaired due to the mini-stroke, she has become left-hand dominant. The brain is amazing in how it switches over from the right brain to the left brain or vice versa to complete tasks.
As she folds her clothes, there is an inner peace that exudes outwardly and encaptures her full attention giving her solace and accomplishment.
Her face is filled with much delight as I asked if she wanted to fold the clothes.
She takes pride in how she folds the clothes using both the left and right hands. She does not allow impairment to stop her from functioning.
Dementia affects her short-term memory but she remembers that there are more clothes in the basket to be folded and where she placed like items after each was folded.
She folds the clothes and separates each according to their type and places them accordingly. This involves cognition and remembering in the short term.
The moral of this story is to find what makes a dementia person happy and love on them with it and watch their transformation.
No matter what situation life finds one in, there is always a solution to be found. Sometimes, one may have to look harder than other times but life comes with choices and answers.
In conclusion, for caregivers of dementia, there is always a way to bring life to a lost soul that seeks to make sense of their new old world.
To truly love a person is to learn their song and sing it to them when they have forgotten it!
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