20 things NOT to say or do to a person with dementia
- Don’t say, ‘but you don’t look or sound like you have dementia’
- Don’t tell us we are wrong
- Don’t argue with us or correct trivial things
- Don’t say ‘remember when…’
- Don’t call us ‘sufferers’ or ‘victims’
- Don’t refer to us as demented, dementing illness, vacant dement, demented sufferer, an empty shell, fading away, disappearing, or that it is the longest goodbye, the saddest goodbye, stealing us away (we are always still here), afflicted
- Don’t say you are ‘living with dementia’ unless you are diagnosed with dementia
- Don’t remind us of the death of a loved one or pet
- Don’t blame the person for the changes in behaviour or personality.
- We have a form or type of dementia, not an ‘affliction’
- Don’t call me honey, love or anything other than my preferred name
- Don’t refer to us as ‘aggressives, ‘wanderers’, ‘poor feeders’, ‘wetters’, ‘attention-seekers’, ‘non-communicators’ or as ‘obstructive’ – we are still human beings
- Don’t assume because we can’t tell you, your words or actions don’t hurt our feelings
- Don’t assume I can’t answer for myself
- Don’t talk about me to someone else, in front of me
- Don’t assume we can’t communicate even if I we can’t speak
- Don’t say, ‘but I’ve just told you that’ or ‘you’ve asked me that already’
- Don’t think we can’t feel pain, or have emotions
- Don’t assume we don’t understand just because we are silent
- Don’t assume anything; it makes an ass out of u and me
For more information about dementia or therapies for mental health contact Brainstorm.
