Not Again?

I am posting a day earlier so i can volunteer tomorrow at the Memory Walk for the Alzheimer's Association.
This past week has been full of it's challenges. The washer broke down, the basement freezer quit and I had to rescue the food in it and the home computer decided no matter how hard I pushed the start button, it wasn't going to connect to turn on. The bright idea I had to press the recharge button resulted in it sticking. Thank goodness for a laptop, for the washer repairman who said it was just a starter switch and for the fact that I don't need to store extra food for now.
Things going wrong or challenging weeks are part of everyone's life. As many times as I have heard and know that attitude is everything when handling anything difficult, I have to admit that it's been an ongoing lifelong lesson. Especially when they come in a string! I can think of the times I've complained at what has happened while looking for the next thing TO happen. What an attitude! Talk about THE way to take away the joy of the moment!
So true too with challenging behaviors in dementia. The behavior I am thinking of right now that steals joy from so many family members and care partners is repetitiveness. I cannot count how many times I have heard over the years someone talk about the frustration of this issue.
When someone is saying the same thing again and again or asking the same question repeatedly, it can feel like getting hit with a wave of seasickness and you just want to get off the boat. Or it can be like the feeling when you have had enough of everything and just need a sanity break or a vacation away from it all.
One of the ways I learned to detour through hearing the same thing over and over is to anticipate that I am going to hear it again. This may not work for everyone but it helps to turn the attitude from "If I hear that one more time..." to "I know s/he is going to say it/ask me again."
I have a dear friend who has been in this business for over 30 years and she just told me about handling repeating by thinking (in the two minutes before the question would be asked again) of a new answer she could give. She made it like a game instead of an aggravation and it helped her challenge her own brain in the process.
Another way to help is to look at the behavior in a different way. If a person has a broken leg, we would see it in a cast and not ask them to kick a ball. It is impossible to see that the brain is "broken" so it is harder not to ask them to stop repeating or to tell them "I just told you ___ times!"
Activities can help. We have an activity, Shut The Box, in our program. I watched a man work with it for two hours, repeating the rolling of the dice and the flipping of the numbers back and forth. I worked with a woman who was able to quiet the repetitive questioning by sorting like objects of color into bowls of matching colors. Our butterflies and flowers can do that for a person. There was one lady we worked with who babysat most of her life and loved children. We gave her a lifelike babydoll and she was able to direct all of her talking to that baby, who didn't care if she repeated, until she would get tired and say "Could someone else please babysit for awhile? I need a rest."
Another way is to ask a question instead of giving an answer. For example, one man asked again and again when his wife would be home. Instead of answering for the 8th time, I said "I'm not sure. When do you think she will be home?" That led to a change in the direction for awhile and the interaction was where she was driving, how long it took, what the roads were like, how long women took in a store and then to whether or not he liked to shop.
If a person is still at a level of cognition where they are capable of reading, writing the answer to a repetitive question on an index card is helpful. Then you can refer to the card and ask them to read the answer. Even though that too can happen again and again, you are giving them a direction for the answer and a moment of stimulation for the brain. Sometimes this even leads to helping to remember. Either way it can help to lessen frustration.
I think of how very often we hear, from a spiritual standpoint, that we are to live in the present moment. Isn't it amazing how hard it is on everyone when the person with memory loss is doing that; experiencing the moment, forgetting it, and then experiencing what is a repeated moment to us but a present moment to them? Sometimes reflecting on how profound that seems to be is another way that I can try to see it not as difficult, but as a way to look at it through new eyes. Mary Ann