Sensitivity Training for Caregivers of People with Dementia ( Part 1)

Please wipe this mess off of my face. Please!

Don’t go so fast, I can’t swallow! I’m not ready for a drink yet!

Is this bite going to be hot or cold?

Sweet or bitter?

Pureed meat or pudding?

Please wipe my face!

There was an opportunity in town that, as a caregiver, I couldn’t pass up. It was one of the early sensitivity training programs for caregivers at Bethany Homes, a care facility near my own home. This sensitivity training program is mandatory for their staff, but they allow other care homes to use it as well. My role as an elder care columnist gave me a pass to take part in the course. What I didn’t know was that they would make me their pet target.

What sensitivity training isn’t

Sensitivity training cannot simulate the actual experience of living with dementia and isn’t intended to do so. No training can replicate the anxiety, fear, possible delusions, and other wrenching experiences that people living with dementia face, nor can these programs fully help us understand their pain over all they’ve lost. The programs do not simulate dementia. What they can do, however, is ratchet up our sensitivity about what it’s like to be unable — even temporarily — to control our environment. To be at the mercy of people who don’t necessarily know us well enough to care about us.

When done properly, these programs will help us understand helplessness, confusion, frustration, degradation as well as playacting can. These programs address physical and mental health, so caregivers of people living with mental health issues could certainly benefit, too.

My nightmare begins

After some intake paperwork, including a test that asked about my perceptions of dementia care, I was asked to move to another chair and told I could no longer talk. The woman asked for my eyeglasses, then placed green, bug-eyed goggles on my face. The goggle lenses were foggy, with dark circles in the center to simulate macular degeneration. The area surrounding each dark spot was cloudy.

She covered my ears with ear phones emitting jabbering background noise, rather like a muted radio talk show. She poured un-popped corn into each of my shoes to simulate the pain of arthritic feet and bunions. Another woman pulled gloves with popcorn-filled finger tips over my hands, then taped together three fingers on each hand. I felt as though I was, bit-by bit, being entombed…

Continue reading for the rest of part 1 of my experience with dementia sensitivity training:

Minding Our Elders: Caregivers Share Their Personal Stories. “I hold onto your book as a life preserver and am reading it slowly on purpose…I don’t want it to end.” …Craig William Dayton, Film Composer

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