Page 39 - Changes and Challenges

Dementia
Changes and Challenges
Some Solutions.

In this section I will elaborate more on what I think can help, and both address
some questions about what helps as well as raising some more questions that
should be asked by all.

The Role of People. page 42) can destroy this familiarity and comfort. Given a
choice keeping with the familiar is the first option. I’ll discuss this more when I
talk about the role technology can play (see The Role of Technology. page 42).

Contrast this for similar places. I often travel by air and invariable have
difficulties navigating these environments. I have no problems with
wayfinding just negotiating the variations on procedure and instructions
between different airports. The principles of layout and design is common
across most airports, but how some procedures are implemented varies
greatly between airports.

The Impact of Time of Day and Tiredness.
All the impacts of Dementia are amplified and become more apparent when
we are tired. This is simply because we have exhausted what little cognitive
reserve we have, reducing our capacity to deal with normal sensory inputs.
Tiredness can be brought on by the time of the day or by exhaustion.
Generally, we all feel tireder after a long day, and can become exhausted
because of physical, emotional, or cognitive exertion.

Another observation is that we seem to fall into one of two groups, those who
rise and function early, or those who rise and function later in the day. A
simplistic classification, but some do appear to be at the peak of their
performance mid-morning and other mid-afternoon. What unifies us is that
our functional day is shorter, we become tired quicker than we did before our
diagnosis.

This may be noticeable in changes to our sleep patterns.
Sleep.
I find it very much harder to compensate for late nights and broken sleep
patterns. I have only been able to “sleep in’ twice in the last six years, both

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