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    Do This, Remembering Me: The Spiritual Care of Those with Alzheimer's and Dementia
    Do This, Remembering Me: The Spiritual Care of Those with Alzheimer's and Dementia
    Do This, Remembering Me: The Spiritual Care of Those with Alzheimer's and Dementia
    Ebook123 pages2 hours

    Do This, Remembering Me: The Spiritual Care of Those with Alzheimer's and Dementia

    By Colette Bachand-Wood and Barbara Cawthorne Crafton

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    About this ebook

    Memory loss should not be spiritual loss.

    “What do I do to help?” Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, almost everyone knows someone with some form of dementia, yet few know how to answer that question, and very little material exists on providing spiritual care to adults with dementia-related diseases. Even seminaries rarely provide training or clinical pastoral education in this field.

    This book is an answer. It provides a hands-on manual that will give clergy, spiritual care providers, and family members an understanding of the ongoing spiritual needs of individuals with dementia, as well as practical tools such as how to create a religious service in a memory care unit and how one might plan a nursing home visit. Accessibly written, with real life applications and sample services for a variety of settings. More than just useful, the book inspires with shared stories that are tender, sad, funny—and sometimes all three at once, encouraging readers to develop spiritual care ministries for people with memory loss in congregations, homes, nursing facilities, or other communities—a ministry that will only gain in importance in the coming decade, as Baby Boomers age and the number of people with Alzheimer’s and dementia skyrockets.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMorehouse Publishing
    Release dateMar 1, 2016
    ISBN9780819232526
    Do This, Remembering Me: The Spiritual Care of Those with Alzheimer's and Dementia
    Author

    Colette Bachand-Wood

    Colette Bachand-Wood, whose father died of complications related to dementia, is a graduate of Episcopal Divinity School and spent seven years of research and work with Alzheimer's and other dementia-related disease patients. She currently serves as rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Whitman, Massachusetts, and is also chaplain at the Village at Propietor's Green in Marshfield, a senior living facility with a memory care unit. In addition Bachand-Wood runs a monthly care-giver support group and previously worked as a hospice chaplain, where she received special training in Alzheimer care. She has been guest speaker and panel member at local conferences, support groups, and professional groups, as well as facilitator of bereavement programs in nursing homes for staff members. She lives in Scituate, Massachusetts.

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      Book preview

      Do This, Remembering Me - Colette Bachand-Wood

      CHAPTER ONE

      Then Sings My Soul

      img1

      Listen to me, O house of Jacob,

      all the remnant of the house of Israel,

      who have been borne by me from your birth,

      carried from the womb;

      even to your old age I am he,

      even when you turn gray I will carry you.

      I have made, and I will bear;

      I will carry and will save. (Isaiah 46:3–4)

      The first time it happened I cried, then laughed, then asked myself, What just happened? The first time a patient with Alzheimer’s made a spiritual connection in my presence—moving out of darkness into light, moving out of loneliness into togetherness, moving out of despair into calm—I knew I had witnessed something miraculous, and I was hooked. Thus began a journey to learn how to provide spiritual care to those with Alzheimer’s and dementia. God was still there for them and I was determined to find ways to help them remember the One who calls them beloved. These are some of my first teachers, through whom God spoke. God said, Pay attention, they have much to teach. And so I listened.

      Meet Frank

      T’was the week before Christmas and all through the nursing home … it was very depressing.

      I sat with Frank in a small, outdated common room. Another resident slept soundly in a chair across the room by a window. The hallways were lined with wheelchairs, the air was warm and stale, and a TV in the corner was on but the sound mute. Attempts to decorate the room to look festive had been tried, but the plastic poinsettias struck me as tacky. They were old with branches bent out of shape from being stuffed in a box since last year. There was a Christmas tree in a corner whose lights blinked on and off. I pulled up a chair next to Frank. He looked as though someone had stuffed him in the wheelchair. Food stains covered the front of his shirt; his head was wedged between two pillows. He barely responded when I said, Hi.

      Frank had advanced dementia. A year ago when I visited him, he could recite the Lord’s Prayer, take Communion, and tell brief stories about his family and his career as a police officer. So much had changed since then. The times of praying Our Father had ceased. No longer at home with his wife of some sixty years, Frank was in this facility where he mostly slept, which was what he was doing that day.

      As is so common attempting a pastoral visit with someone with dementia, I had a heavy feeling in my stomach of not knowing what to do with Frank. I felt helpless and even questioned my efforts. Maybe some of the nurses here were right; they would always say to me, He has no idea what is going on. I always felt like they were discouraging my visits, and today I was feeling that maybe I had been too idealistic about this, maybe all really was lost by now for Frank. The nurses, after all, must know so much more than I do. As I thought about leaving, the lights of the Christmas tree were flickering in colorful patterns with a kind of urgency that nudged me to think differently and seemed to be asking me to hang in. I tried the Lord’s Prayer, and finished it alone without response. I sat for some time and held his hand. I sat some more. It was three days before Christmas; I wondered what he was missing out on at home. What did the family do for traditions? Is he missing his favorite warm pumpkin bread? What toy trains had he put together as a young father? Did he teach the kids to ride a bike, Look Dad, no hands! Did he dance in the kitchen with his

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