Gone Fishing

"Gone Fishing"

Today, I was on my way down one of the halls of the building to look over an extra room (potentially, my new office? It looks more like a janitor's closet, but I'll take what I can get!) when I got stopped by one of our newer residents. He approached me and began to tell me a story about how he was helping the caregiver next to him catch some fish by the river. He inclined his head towards a direction, as if the river was down that way. I hadn't formally met him yet, so I was a little shocked because I hadn't encountered a resident who had quite the level of dementia he had in a while. It's pretty amazing though what you can find out about people with dementia though.

First of all, I'm no scientist, but I've observed that most dementia-cases seem to keep bringing up the same story. In this man's case, it was a fishing story. One would think, you could tell a story about fishing and move on, but for whatever reason, with any dementia resident we have, it's always pretty similar. There's a story, like they're waiting to get picked up, or they're trying to get home, that they just repeat over and over again. In this man's case, it's the fishing story. You'll notice though when you talk to this resident though, his voice is calm and almost soothing. Really rich and mellow, like you could fall asleep listening to him. (In a good way, not like, you're bored!) And the story he repeats seems really lively in a calm sort of way. Not full of angst or lacking resolution like other stories I've heard.

When I work with residents who are at this point in the game of life, where they don't seem "all there", it's always interesting to note what they're dwelling on. Are they talking about the love they shared between people, or is there some mysterious cliff-hanger left in their life? Do they dwell on positive thoughts of the life they've had, or are they brooding over troubling past events? Really makes you think long term and figure out how you want to live your life.

john.