Dementia Couch Conversations: Joining their reality v.s. lying

February 11, 2020Mikki Firor Uncategorized

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Today we’re gonna talk about two common dementia techniques: Embracing somebody’s reality and lying to somebody with dementia. The difference is that when you join somebody’s reality, you are meeting them where they’re at based off of what they believe. When you lie to somebody with dementia, you are telling them something that is different from the truth. A lot of people believe that these techniques are one in the same but you should not be lying to somebody when you are joining a reality.

I’m gonna give you an example. Somebody (with dementia) says “I want to call my husband.”

We know that their husband is not alive and he died 10 years ago. Well, that person with dementia is now wanting to call him. Lying to them looks a lot like: “you know what let’s give him a call.” (Pick up a phone, pretend to call him). “Oh, he didn’t answer, but he’ll be here later.” Embracing their reality would require you understanding a little bit more about their reality: Why do they want to talk to their husband? So, asking those questions: “Why do you want to call him?” Sometimes you will find that the person with dementia is aware that the person has died and they may say “you know, I just miss his voice and ever since he died I’ve always wanted to talk to him. I really wish I could.” Well, now we know that that person’s reality is not what we initially thought that it was so we’re not making assumptions.

Another example is when somebody is having a hallucination.

It would be lying to start to act things out in order to fix that hallucination. If somebody says that there’s a fire pretending to put the fire out with water. Or, if somebody says that there’s a dog and we walk over and start petting the dog, we haven’t actually understood their reality to the full extent. So, by lying and inserting ourselves into what we believe it is, we’re actually breaking down trust and doing it a disservice to the care relationship.

Instead of jumping in and assuming you know what the person’s reality is, I recommend asking questions and then responding accordingly. Be careful not to try and insert yourself into the hallucination or delusion but understand what they’re doing and try to remove the person from the hallucination or delusion.

I hope this helped!

These are some techniques that I often give to caregivers and we see that it’s a lot more effective. I hope that they’re

helpful for you and I hope you now understand the difference between embracing somebody’s reality and lying

to them.

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