Daily Dementia Dose: “Have it Your Way”

I just drove through Burger King and I remembered what they say there – have it your way.

Dementia patients, they insist that you do it in their own way.

In the nursing home that I used to work at, at Signature Healthcare, they have this form called “My way form.”

In that form, you write down the patient’s name, their likes and dislikes, what they did 20 years ago, their strengths, their weaknesses, are they married, or were they divorced, or how many kids they had.

From there, they have this patient profile and they know how to take care of that patient.

Most of the time, we need to follow that “My way form” or the way our patients used to live.

If they liked working on woodwork, if they would like to knit, let them do it.

That is their way of living that they can remember.

So when you have a dementia patient who insists that it is 1975, let it be 1975, because that is their way and that is their reality.

Gone are the days about reality orientation.

You cannot insist that it is 2018 because they are forgotten.

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