TIME WITH TEEPA
You Are Not the Wife
I’m Looking For
Many individuals find that one of the most challenging experiences of supporting someone living with dementia is when they no longer recognize us. Teepa Snow, MS, OTR/L, FAOTA, one of the country’s leading experts on dementia care, helps us more fully understand this situation in Time with Teepa, her social media series where she addresses follower questions.
“I Want to Go Home to My Wife”
As an example, when a husband doesn’t recognize his wife and repeats, “I want to go home to my wife” when she is actually standing right in front of him, Snow recommends pausing to recognize what is going on: OK, so I’m not the person you were expecting, but I’m going to take that and put it aside.…I do want to deal with it, but not right now. Right now, I want to deal with what’s happening in front of me.
Then Snow recommends that the care partner get curious about the situation. Try asking the individual: “Do you need your wife for something, or are you just wanting to be with her?” Do your best to determine what they are seeking. Could something be making them uncomfortable? Could they be wanting to move to a new space or have a new experience? You may also wish to validate feelings by saying something like, “It’s really hard not having her, when you are wanting her.”
“That’s a start. It isn’t the only answer or possibility,” Snow says, “but it’s certainly a start.”
What Causes This Phenomenon?
First, Snow explains, one of the things that dementia does is “unweave the timeline of life….It takes away the ability to recognize where I am in life and yet allows me to keep emphasized memories or episodes that may not be in the correct sequence.” In this situation, the husband could be remembering his wife as how she looked when they were newly married, 50 years earlier. Or, he could be remembering his first wife, while speaking with his second wife.
Another factor is that dementia can cause the shifting of roles, and the brain is trying to make sense of that. From the husband’s point of view, the wife is turning into someone who doesn’t really treat him like his wife would (she’s helping him find things, get dressed, telling him what to do). The husband is looking for the wife who treats him like a husband, not a mother. “It’s a desire to have back that which I have lost, but I no longer may have the language to explain.”
Snow encourages care partners to “take care with our care” and “get curious” when you encounter these types of challenging situations. For more information, please visit TeepaSnow.com
This article appeared in Alzheimer’s TODAY, Volume 20, Number 2