One other thing I have learned: I asked how I could learn more about what my father needs from me spiritually. Since he has dementia, coupled with aphasia from his strokes, it is so hard for me to talk to him about anything, let alone something as oblique as spirituality.
We somehow got onto the language of dementia and how words uttered by someone with dementia often mean something totally different. Doug (a Pastoral Counselor) said that when a person with dementia asks to go home, they don't necessarily mean their previous physical home, but rather they are expressing the desire to return to what they were when they could speak, understand and communicate, to a time when they had their minds. I asked how a caregiver could respond to this issue. Doug suggested we ask our loved one some simple questions: Do you feel loved? Do you feel nurtured? Do you feel secure? Because these are the primary needs of those with dementia, these questions may help alleviate this caregiver's obsession with helping her father in any way she can.
