Resolve to ask people with dementia what THEY want

With over 200 blogs on D4Dementia, some of them now 7 years old, I've decided to spend my 2019 year of blogging by re-visiting some of the topics I’ve covered previously, throwing fresh light on why they remain relevant, and updating them with some of my more recent experiences. For my last blog of 2019, I want to look at how we listen to and respect the viewpoints of people with dementia.

In July 2015, I wrote a blog post entitled: 'Why don't we listen to people with dementia?'. In that blog I said:

“If we are ever to move beyond stigma and discrimination and towards a truly world-class model of support and care for people with dementia, then giving people with dementia a voice and listening to what they have to say really is the only place to start.”

It was, therefore, with some amazement that I read a report about the UK Dementia Congress debate last month entitled, ‘Environmental lies in care homes play an important role in delivering person centred care’. The Journal of Dementia Care said the following about the debate:

“When can you lie to a care home resident? It was a hotly contested issue at UKDC last week, where delegates debated the use of “environmental lies” in care settings, such as fake windows with painted views, “bus stops” to which no bus ever comes, and disguised doors. “As a person with dementia when I go into a care home I do not want them to lie, either in the environment they create or in their actions,” said Keith Oliver, who opposed the motion that deceptive décor can play an important role in delivering person-centred care. It was an impassioned performance from Oliver, who has young onset dementia, which helped sway the audience from favouring environmental lies at the start of the debate to being firmly against by the end. But independent nurse consultant Lynne Phair, fought valiantly in favour of the motion and said there could be a therapeutic value in meeting the person with dementia in their own reality. Phair added: “Environmental lies must be used wisely.” But there was a resounding victory for the motion's opposers – also including Professor Graham Stokes – who had 54% of the audience behind them by the end (compared with 33% at start), while the proposers – also including family member Catherine Naj Dyke - had 37% on their side by the end (40% at the beginning).”

For me, the quote from Keith Oliver says it all, and frankly not only would I have supported Keith had I been at the debate but I wouldn’t have had the temerity to argue against him (which would make me a useless debater!) even if I felt fake environments were a good idea (which I don’t) for one simple reason - He is living with dementia, I am not. My natural standpoint is to show deference to any person living with dementia, putting aside my personal viewpoints and remembering what my dad always told me: “Respect your elders and betters.”

Keith’s views, I suspect, are echoed by many people living with dementia, including the numerous individuals who are living with dementia in care homes and largely don’t have a voice. From my experiences with my dad, I know he found the fake letterbox, door knocker and doorknob put onto his care home bedroom door utterly baffling, and why wouldn’t you? They didn’t function as these items normally would, and they seemed to have been added purely for decoration following a dementia consultant being engaged to ‘improve’ the environment. Sadly, what this consultant didn’t factor in was the amount of confusion and frustration such changes would cause.

In my work with care homes, I have never advocated for the implementation of fake environments. I have always felt, and seen this borne out numerous times, that if the care and support is good enough, if staff really understand dementia and are well trained and supported in their work, then the needs of residents living with dementia will not only be met but continually exceeded.

The money spent on fake environments, which is often considerable, is always likely to be better spent investing in staff. It is people that make the difference in dementia care, nothing is more important than the human element, and to reinforce this I go back to the point I made at the National Care Forum (NCF) Managers Conference last month, and which was reported on by the NCF's Nathan Jones: 

“A hotel environment is just window dressing if the care is not there.”

The type of environmental changes I support are based on bringing the person’s life story alive. I love to see environmental life story work that enables people to be reminded of things in their lives that make them happy or proud. After all, most of us like being surrounded by family photos, mementoes from holidays, and career, hobby, sporting or musical passions or achievements. Most people fill their homes with items that are personal to them, and that is the most apt way to create a supportive environment for a person living with dementia. Even if it’s only within their own bedroom in a care home it is better than the stark, plain, hospital-like rooms that so many people with dementia exist in within care homes, and certainly better than deliberately introducing items or decorations that depict something utterly fake. 

As I said in my September 2016 blog, 'Life story work - The gift that keeps on giving':

“Documenting memories and turning them into vibrant resources that tell their own unique story has a magical quality about it that I can’t put into words – you really just have to try it.”

So, if you run a care home and are planning some environmental changes in 2020 (or beyond), resolve to: Find out what people living with dementia actually want (ask them! And if the people you support aren't able to help, contact organisations like DEEP or Dementia Alliance International), prioritise life story work for anyone you support who wants to participate in that, and always keep it real, not fake.

Thank you for all your support in 2019. Until 2020...

You can follow me on Twitter: @bethyb1886
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What to do for 'the best'

Last year I wrote a popular blog post entitled ‘Five things I wish I'd known before my dad's dementia’. Point two was entitled ‘What to do for the best’ and said:

"The great problem when my dad was living with dementia is that I wasn't a researcher, or an observer of all things 'dementia'. I never Googled what other people's dad's who were living with dementia really enjoyed. Nor did I attend dementia groups, access social media extensively, or read dementia books or blogs (so the fact that you are reading this means you are one step ahead of where I was!). 

I learnt what worked for my dad eventually but it was often through trial and error, and when I think back so much time was wasted. For example, I would never have persevered with ensuring my dad had TV in his room: in hindsight I would have scrapped the TV on day one and replaced it with the CD player and music collection that brought infinitely more joy to his life. I’d have made the environmental changes that personalised dad’s room much quicker, and the life story work staff asked for my help with and I took ages to dig out photos and make the memory box, I’d have done that quicker too. 

We'd buy things, like CD's, for birthdays and Christmases thinking it was nice to space out the gifts. Big mistake. Dementia is terminal, you are 'on the clock' as it were. Get as many lovely things as you can afford and enjoy every single one of them as soon as possible so you have them for as long as possible. My dad was never into big birthday or Christmas celebrations, and looking back maybe he was onto something with that."

I often receive emails from family members outlining their situation and asking me what to do for 'the best', and my ‘Five things I wish I'd known before my dad's dementia’ post prompted a few more of those emails, so here are my thoughts on what to do for 'the best':

Don’t beat yourself up

Wanting to know what to do for ‘the best’ is a really common feeling that most of us have in relation to a variety of situations. A natural human instinct is to want to avoid getting things ‘wrong’, but when I was growing up my parents always said: “He who never made a mistake never made anything.” There is no such thing as the perfect way to support a loved one with dementia, so don’t beat yourself up.

'The best' in your situation is unique to your situation

Whenever anyone asks me what is for 'the best' in relation to their loved one with dementia my opening suggestion is always to remember that ‘the best’ in your situation will be unique to your situation. My best, your best and everyone else’s best is entirely individual to them. This phrase really underpins that: “When you’ve met one person with dementia, you’ve met one person with dementia.” Ultimately, there is no definitive rule book on what the best care and support looks like - I was guided more by instinct than knowledge, and sometimes that’s no bad thing.

Sometimes a desire to do our ‘best’ can lead to our worst

Reading the accounts of people living with dementia in the last few years has made me realise that as care partners we can unintentionally become very caught up in the desire to do our ‘best’, sometimes stifling the person with dementia, disabling or disempowering them, which is far from 'the best' for anyone but hard to recognise when we are living in the moment. I’ve only really learnt this lesson as a result of following the work of empowerment groups like DEEP and DAI, realising the 'I'm doing this for the best' trap is easy to fall into and one I fell into myself with my dad sometimes.

As Wendy Mitchell says in her book, 'Somebody I used to know':

"They were one of those typical couples, the ones where the wife takes the lead; she takes his coat from his arms, she folds it over, sits him down, checks on him - once, twice - then goes off to fetch a cup of tea. I see it a lot, wherever I go. I know they're only trying to help, so why does it always look to me as if these husbands - or wives - are so much more advanced in their disease than me, someone who has no one to fetch and carry for me, to finish my sentences, to decide that I can't even manage the small chores that are still very much physically and mentally possible."

Being the best YOU can be is enough

I was by my own admission far from perfect in supporting my dad, but I was the best I could be, and I’ve realised since dad's death that you can be no more than that. When dad was alive the decisions came thick and fast, from small things to big things and everything in-between. I would constantly wonder, “Is this for the best?” about everything from signing a consent form to deliberating about medication, or taking the ‘risk’ of supporting dad to eat when healthcare professionals questioned if he could cope with anything orally due to his dysphagia. Comparing yourself to others, as I’ve known some relatives to do, will only lead to feelings of failure, or the opposite - an exalted view of how great you are at supporting your loved one. Neither is helpful. This quote sums it up perfectly:

Coping with the feeling you haven’t done your 'best'

Sometimes I run information and knowledge session for the relatives of people who are supported by care providers. These often involve a lot of sharing of our individual stories, and sometimes become understandably very emotional for all of us. One of the biggest contributors to not feeling you are doing or have done 'the best' for your loved one is when professional care and support is needed. My view: asking for help doesn't mean you're a failure. We desperately need to move away from the rhetoric that being a family carer means doing everything for your loved one, alone, for the rest of their life, no matter what. Doing your 'best' should never be a byword for burning yourself out.

Until next time...

You can follow me on Twitter: @bethyb1886
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Resolve to embrace human rights

(A note before I begin this blog post: You should not consider anything written in this blog as legal advice for you or anyone you care for).

During my dementia training for social care professionals, I ask participants:

“Do you think people with dementia have human rights?”

Most participants, keen to say the right thing, murmur, “Of course.”

Which naturally leads me onto the next question:

“So what are these human rights then? Name me some...”

And the silence that follows is usually defending.

When the silence is broken, it’s been broken by some really ‘interesting’ contributions. The right to "a cup of tea" and a "clean bum" are two notable examples.

I talk about human rights during my training on living well, or living better, with dementia. Although human rights fit into every aspect of living with dementia, I think presenting them in the context of 'living well' sends an important message that human rights are vital to the person’s quality of life.

Human rights and people with dementia

There has been a very powerful movement towards thinking about the support of people with dementia in a human rights context, led by many important voices including Dementia Alliance International. The disability sector really pioneered human rights work in relation to people with various disabilities, and leading advocates for people living with dementia do, quite correctly, feel that the same rights should be afforded to people with dementia. Legally that is certainly true, but in practice it happens sporadically at best.

Human Rights law encompasses many different aspects of life. To pick out some of the Rights that are particularly relevant in the context of health, social care and dementia, I often think about:

•    The Right to life

•    The Right to freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment

•    The Right to liberty and security

•    The Right to respect for your private and family life, home and correspondence

•    The Right to freedom of thought, belief and religion

•    The Right to freedom of expression

•    The Right to protection from discrimination in respect of these rights and freedoms

•    The Right to peaceful enjoyment of your property

Historically, the most common barrier to the application of a person’s human rights has been the assumption that all people with dementia are incapable of self-determination (autonomy) simply because they have dementia. Of course, with the introduction in the UK of the Mental Capacity Act (My blog post on MCA is here), that assumption could no longer, legally, be made.

Yet, such is the lack of understanding about MCA, and the often poor practical application of its 5 main principles, the MCA is frequently as misunderstood as human rights legislation. Even more alarmingly, whilst most social care staff when questioned will say they’ve had some basic training in the Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS), the majority of staff I see have never even been asked to consider their care and support practices in the context of the person’s human rights.

Simplifying legal complexities

Human rights is a huge topic that I do not profess to be an expert in. But even for a lay person such as myself, there are important aspects that I feel anyone can and should grasp to augment their understanding.

Firstly, the framework for making decisions is an approach based on asking yourself:

•    Is it lawful?

•    Is it a legitimate aim?

•    Is it necessary in a democratic society?

Three fairly simple questions. And of course the ‘it’ could be anything, from a daily care and support issue around personal care or medication right through to locking doors.

Secondly, the principles of a human rights based approach are:

•    Proportionality

•    Least restrictive option

•    Balancing rights and risks

•    Proactive strategies

All of those 4 principles draw me in, much like the principle in the Mental Capacity Act that allows for a person to make an ‘unwise’ decision. The concepts of balancing rights and risks, being proportional, and taking the least restrictive option always spark interesting conversations. 

Practicing a human rights based approach

In one recent example, I asked a group of care workers what they would do if the person they supported wanted to take a walk outside:

Care staff: “Our residents often go outside onto the patio in the summer.”

Me: “Ok, I was thinking a bit further than your patio area. And I’m talking about right now. Late November, 4pm.”

Care staff: “Ah well that would be dangerous so we’d keep them in.”

Me: “But what about the person’s right to liberty and security? If we say we are respecting the person’s rights, are we only doing that between May and September?”

Care staff: “But we have to keep them safe - it’s getting dark.”

Me: “It is, so if we are taking a human right’s approach, respecting the person’s right to LIBERTY and SECURITY, let’s ensure the person is wrapped up in warm clothes and non-slip shoes, dress ourselves similarly, take a torch (and we have lighting around the building) and go for a walk outside with the person. That way we are supporting the person’s right to liberty, doing our best to keep the person safe by keeping them warm and going with them, and being proportional by supporting what the person wants but keeping to areas that are well-lit and won’t involve us getting lost. We have balanced the person’s rights with the risks and found a less restrictive option (than keeping the person locked up inside). We could also add being proactive in our approach if the person wants to regularly go for a walk at this time and we anticipate and support that. And as a plus point, can anyone think of any other benefits?

(Silence)

Me: “The person will hopefully get a bit of an appetite for their supper, enjoy some exercise, and potentially stave off any sundowning symptoms by being occupied and engaged. Best of all, we will have empowered that person.”

Empowerment - the very best example of living well

That, for me, is ultimately what a human rights based approach is all about - empowerment. Losing rights and freedoms is very disempowering. Being told "no" constantly. Being locked up like a prisoner. Feeling your needs and wants don’t matter. Anyone in that position might just give up.

But when we find a way by being proactive, even if logistically we have to make some compromises, we transform the person’s experience. Being told "yes" is a positive feeling. When the doors open, the sense of freedom is exhilarating. Having our needs and wants met validates those needs and wants. You are living, not just existing, because you feel like a worthwhile and empowered human being.

My challenge to you

Many individuals and organisations would benefit from enhancing their understanding and revolutionising their approach to human rights to protect people living with dementia from, at best, misguided care and support and at worst, abuse. So, as 2017 draws to a close (this post marks my last D4Dementia blog of the year), my challenge to everyone involved in the care and support of people with dementia is to make 2018 the year you resolve to embrace a human rights based approach. And to support you, this won’t be my last blog on the topic.

Thank you for all your support in 2017. Until 2018...

You can follow me on Twitter: @bethyb1886

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The failure of post-diagnosis support

It’s not often that the content of TV programmes stays with me, but the recent BBC ‘Hospital’ series, following the fortunes of patients and staff at Imperial Trust’s hospitals in London, and ‘Granddad, dementia and me’ that I wrote about last month, both fall into that category.

Documentaries can teach us a lot, and even allowing for the selective nature of TV editing and the luxury of being a passive viewer rather than a stressed subject with a camera pointing at you, I feel it’s important that the learning from these two programmes isn’t lost.

The third episode of ‘Hospital’ featured two gentlemen living with dementia. Firstly we were introduced to Carl:

Narrator: “75-year-old Carl has dementia. His family brought him to A&E after he became aggressive at home. Yesterday morning he walked out of the hospital and was missing for 13 hours. The police found him wandering the streets alone and brought him back to A&E.”

Dr Barbara Cleaver, Emergency Medicine Consultant: “Three people to look after him at the moment including security because he is in an unfamiliar environment, it’s noisy, it’s bright, there’s lots going on. I suspect that’s really playing into his underlying diagnosis and making things much worse for him.”

Narrator: “For his own safety, Carl is being held in room Q, the space reserved for psychiatric patients.”

My alternative commentary would be:

“Carl, a gentleman living with dementia, was missing his wife who for her own health needed a break from 24/7 unsupported caring. Carl, confused and frustrated that he couldn’t find his wife, lashed out at those around him through no fault of his own, and without the skills and support they needed, family members took Carl to a place they thought he would be safe. Carl, however, became disorientated in this alien environment and went to look for his wife for reassurance and familiarity.”

Later, we were introduced to Stanley:

Narrator: “85-year-old Stanley has vascular dementia. This is his 4th admission in three months. Around 25% medical patients treated annually by the Trust have dementia. They are accommodated in a specialist ward until their social care can be arranged.”

My alternative commentary would be:

“Stanley, poorly supported in the community, has had repeated inpatient stays. At present Stanley does not require acute medical treatment, and would undoubtedly have lived far better with his dementia had his family and social care been properly resourced to support Stanley from his diagnosis onwards.”

Were Carl and Stanley featured because their stories are somehow usual? Sadly I suspect quite the opposite. Carl and Stanley are the norm. The failure in post-diagnosis support for people living with dementia and their families is something I have written about countless times. Not only is it a disgrace that families end up in the situations faced by Carl and Stanley, it is also a complete false economy.

My dad was diagnosed 14 years ago. Since then we’ve had numerous dementia-related initiatives from different governments and significant investment into dementia education for healthcare professionals via Health Education England. And yet we still have:

·       People attending A&E because it’s the only place guaranteed to ‘do’ something for them when their family can’t cope with ‘aggression’ or the person has been found ‘wandering’ (not my choice of language)

·       People with dementia being placed in rooms intended for psychiatric patients (that are not remotely dementia friendly)

·       Medical and security staff seemingly untrained in supporting a person with dementia (and loads of stigmatizing language)

·       People remaining stuck in hospital because care packages are so difficult to arrange

·       Family carers at their wits end, wanting to care for their loved one but utterly unsupported

·       No signs of dementia friendly environments (in people's own homes or health/social care facilities)

 

·       No mention of some of the good work that has been done to help people in hospital, like 'This is me' and John's Campaign.

Add in what we saw in ‘Granddad, dementia and me’ where the gentleman featured who was living with dementia, Tom, was drugged and sectioned, and overall in both programmes precious little sign of any choice, control, empowerment, peer support, occupation or activity, life story work and other non-pharmacological treatments, positive behaviour support or, frankly, anything I would be proud of (beyond the outcome shown in Tom story) and I honestly question how much REAL progress has been made in the last 14 years.

By the time a person attends A&E, there have potentially been numerous red-flags that the family needed support. A dementia diagnosis in itself is the first of these. Once things get so out of control that the person is in hospital (which is one of the worst possible environments for a person with dementia - it will only increase the person's confusion and disorientation making them upset and/or angry), the effect on everyone involved isn’t favourable.

Some simple preventative advice and support could at best avoid, or at least significantly delay, a person ever ending up in a crisis situation. Why do we not educate families, at diagnosis and continually thereafter, about (in no particular order):

·       Making their home dementia friendly

·       Accessing peer support and empowerment

·       Occupation and activity - The myriad of different options to keep busy and how to access them

·       Collating and using life stories and other non-pharmacological therapies to support a person experiencing changed behaviour

·       Training: For the person with dementia and anyone in the family unit who wants it. Knowledge is power for many people. Knowing what is happening in the person’s brain, how those changes could affect the person and ways of providing optimal care and support (including self-care for the person with dementia)

·        Carer resilience - Ways of coping, identifying when you aren’t coping and sources of support when you aren’t coping (that actually exist and respond)

Instead, as episode three of ‘Hospital’ concluded, we learnt that Carl was now being cared for in an acute mental health unit and visited daily by his wife, and Stanley was settling in well to his care home. Would either of these gentlemen have chosen these two places of residence? I doubt it. And from the perspective of the tax payer, both are very expensive options (Stanley’s care home costs £1700 a week, plus because of his ‘complex needs’, an additional £2300 for one-to-one care. It is funded by NHS Continuing Healthcare. We never learn what Carl’s acute mental health bed costs).

Worst of all though, is the cost in personal anguish for these two gentleman and their families. We’ve only very briefly dipped into their stories, but they represent examples being replicated every day of how a diagnosis of dementia can needlessly lead to lives unravelling, all for the want of a holistic, long-term package of what is comparatively low-level post-diagnosis support.

 

Ask yourself: For a country aiming to be the best place in the world for people with dementia to live, is that the best we can do?

Until next time...

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Routine, routine, routine

With a New Year often comes resolutions to change our routines. Things we've always done, that perhaps aren't so good for us, are intended to be banished in favour of routines that are healthier or that we perceive are better for us in some way.

Routine is in sharp focus for me since becoming a parent - the deluge of 'advice' on the best routine for your baby can be pretty overwhelming, and we decided before our daughter was born that we were going to do things our own way, responding to her as the individual that she is. To this day, we still don't own a 'baby book' that attempts to 'train' our child like a mechanical doll!

It's this parenting experience that has inspired me to think about how routine is perceived for people at the other end of the age spectrum, and particularly people who are living with dementia. The majority of professional 'experts' seem to be in favour of supporting the person with dementia to retain their own personal routine - that is until the person needs inpatient hospital care, or indeed residential social care, in which case their routine is mostly thrown out of the window and replaced with whatever the institution believes helps them to run their services most efficiently.

Whenever I've been asked about routine, I've generally advocated for the person's own routine to be maintained and protected to give the individual continuity. As so much changes for the person with dementia, this seems a sensible way to help the person to remain grounded in something that feels familiar and that gives them the best chance of maximising their independence. Most people I know who are living with dementia generally say that their routine is vital to their sense of wellbeing and ability to cope.

But there is one very important caveat. Be guided by the person. As family carers, or health and social care professionals, we should never be so wedded to keeping to what we perceive is the person's routine that we become oblivious to the person trying to change their routine. Often, if a person with dementia begins to stray from their 'normal' routine, we at best look to guide them back to it, and at worst become so obsessed with the routine that we berate the person for not adhering to it and try to forcefully pull them back into it, regardless of whether this is what they want or not.

It's the routine. It's how it's always been. It cannot change. Ever.

Except that this is tantamount to trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It doesn't work. Routine should never become a watchword for control. For some people routine is vital, for others less so, but regardless of how the person has historically run their life they are completely at liberty to change that now. Just because the person is living with dementia doesn't mean that they don't know what they want.

Living with dementia may mean that the person can't necessarily find the words to explain what they want, and through our bombardment of communication, questions and nagging, may become so worn down that they either just give in - which could lead to feelings of worthlessness or depression - or fight back, which is commonly labelled by the ill-informed as 'challenging behaviour' (a term I dislike immensely).

As individuals providing care and support, we have to have the courage, however hard it might be, to take a step back and ask ourselves:

•     What is the person trying to tell us?

•     Have the person's needs changed to a point that their 'old' routine no longer works for them?

•     Is there something about when the person wants to eat, sleep, wash or go out that is different because they are trying to respond to what their body is asking them to do? (We are not wired up to their brain or their body, and we cannot ever REALLY know what either is telling the person to do).

•     Does the person want to change their routine just because they can? For a person not living with dementia, this might be positively packaged up as an 'important life change', a 'New Year's resolution', a 'health kick' or some other such celebrated deviation from the norm. Why when a person with dementia wants to change things is the reaction so often to throw our hands up in horror and declare that this won't work and shouldn't happen?

So often I hear from families, or health and social care professionals, who feel that there must be something intensely wrong with the person for changing their routine.

·     Is this a sign that the person's dementia is progressing? Maybe, maybe not. What is it a sign of is the person wanting control over their life, of having the ability to follow what they feel is right for them and the confidence to do that. So not an entirely negative turn of events.

·     How can I stop this? It's a type of arrogance to believe that you can or should. To take away choice and control is to condemn a person with dementia to a life that disempowers them and is completely counterproductive to what you should be wanting to support, which is to enable the person to live as well as possible with their dementia in a way that makes sense to them.

·     What can I do? You can support the person to find a new routine that works for them. That may be one set regime that they like to follow, or it may be a movable feast where every day is a little different. Yes, that can be hard to predict and more difficult to support than the one fixed routine, but it's about what the person wants and needs and they are the only real arbiters of that.

Until next time...

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