Communication and connection with your person in the later part of their journey

I’d like to share some tips regarding communication and connection in the late part of the dementia journey. 

I would invite us all in to view our person as still there, still whole, still the person that we have known – they’re just deeper.  So we need to peel back the curtain or the veil to connect.  We can connect and communicate with them in the late part of the journey. 

I'll often say that connection in the late part of the journey is more sensory:

• Holding hands  

• Brushing someone's hair

• Giving a hand massage

• Listening to music

• Smelling things that are interesting or scents from their past that they've enjoyed.

  
  

We can make engagements “small” – that is, to place items in their space, within their visual field of view where they can see or process or connect with it.

Another thing we can do in the late part of the journey is to connect through music.

So I would invite us, to modify how we think of communication. In the late part of the journey, I think of communication as connection.