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Self esteem with dementia
I'm wondering about the self esteem of someone with dementia. My wife had her annual wellness visit yesterday. Her primary care doctor she really likes is rather blunt. My wife went into a 2 minute dialogue about something and at the end her doc said "I didn't understand a thing you said". She was right. I didn't either. Afterward, I wondered how it would feel to go through life trying to tell people something but not be able to. It would be hard on your self esteem. I don't think that goes away when dementia starts. I try to have short conversations with my wife with pointed questions. She is failing to say what she means often. I would think it would get depressing to struggle to find the right words all the time. She can read scripture like a lector but has trouble telling me what she wants to wear. I made cranberries for today and she said get a nicer bowl to put them in. She is so self aware on things yet completely lost on others.
Which would be worse; struggling with a chronic physical condition or a mental one? Both would be hard on self esteem I would think. Her neurologist made the comment that some people would rather come to him shaking with parkinsons than come to him not knowing why they were there. Self esteem seems harder to find as you get older and old age symptoms start.
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Some doctors don’t seem to be able to respond with the sensitivity that we might expect. He might have said, that was a lot of information you gave….let’s see if I can start by going over a checklist of things about your health recently and your husband is welcome to chime in if he thinks of something else. Rarely, are people who have dementia able to navigate doctor appointments by themselves.
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4 ReactionsI agree with your thoughts about self esteem. My husband suffers from dementia and gets very frustrated when I don't quite understand what he's talking about. He sometimes starts a sentence but trails off and turns his attention to something else. I think this is because he just can't finish his thought so he gives up. The other day he cried because he thought his caregiver and I had been laughing at him 2 days earlier. He heard our laughter in the next room and assumed it was directed at him.
He still needs and deserves to feel respected. His mental anguish is more painful than any physical pain.
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8 ReactionsThat was such a painfully insensitive comment for anyone to make, but a Physician should know better.
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4 ReactionsI can't imagine how frustrating it must be to have words unavailable to you. My husband would do the same thing: start a sentence and trail off. Often, he would look over at a newspaper or magazine and grab some words from the page to add on at the end of the sentence knowing that his thought was incomplete, and he needed a few more words that he couldn't come up with himself. The longer he has had ALZ, the quieter he has become. Trying to communicate has become just too difficult.
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5 ReactionsNot all health care professionals get training in trauma-informed care, but it needs to be part of everyone's training.
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