Page 24 - Changes and Challenges

Dementia
Changes and Challenges
Sensory Challenges.

The challenges we face with the changes to the way we experience the world
though our senses fall into the following areas;

• They vary between individuals – even with the same diagnosis,
depending and the exact ‘micro’ regions of the brain that are affected.
• They change with time. Generally, they will become worse as our
conditions advance, but it is important to note that their severity may
depend on many things that are happening to us. For example, if we
are tired some problems will become more severe.
• No-one can predict the next change, either its nature, its timing or its
severity.
• These complex mechanisms are poorly understood. As such many of
our problems are dismissed or we are referred on for further testing
to rule out all the obvious well-known causes.

What complicates matters more, is that because dementia is diminishing our
communication skills, memory, motivation and abstract reasoning skills we
may be unable to clearly articulate what is happening to us. Unfortunately,
our attempts to express these changes and the changes themselves are often
interpreted as ‘behavioural issues’. Actions based on this erroneous
interpretation are infringements on our basic human rights, even when
enacted with the best intentions or ignorance.
In short, we don’t know what to expect day to day and our concerns are often
dismissed.

The Duck Analogy.
Our cognitive impairment generally means that we must put in an increasingly
greater effort to carry out normal tasks, let alone more complex tasks. This
often means it may take very little extra stimulation to push us to breaking
point. This is further compounded by some of our other symptoms of
impaired judgment etc.

We may appear to be coping and functioning normally, but behind the scenes
we are using far more of our cognitive reserve to maintain this state. We are

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