No Control Freaks Allowed: Embracing the Complexity of Dementia Support
Guest bloggers Jennifer Carson and Pat Sprigg reflect on how to navigate life, we must embrace its complexity. Dementia support is no different. This blog was originally posted in ChangingAging.org.
Some of the most important and sacred experiences in life are complex, such as nurturing a marriage, raising a child and caring for someone as they die. There is no simple formula, no blueprint for success, and no expert who can parachute into your life and tell you exactly how to make it all work, although some try. No matter how much we wish for simple answers, life does not work that way. In order to navigate life, we must embrace its complexity. Dementia support is no different.
Together, we (Jennifer and Pat) have spent more than six decades supporting individuals living with dementia. We have explored different models and approaches and implemented one program after another. We have read books, tried quick fixes and employed evidence-based practice protocols. We have hired experts and attended countless trainings. All of this has brought us to one clear conclusion: dementia support is complex. That’s right. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, and while expertise is helpful, rigid protocols, even when they are evidence-based, have limited application and can even be damaging when mechanically applied without regard for each individual’s or organization’s uniqueness. Sadly, however, the field of dementia support is dominated by such logic. We get it – been there, done that, got the t-shirt. But today, we embrace dementia support for what it really is: a complex lifeworld. Further, we believe that when dementia support is treated as a simple issue with a quick fix or as a complicated issue in need of expert directives or rigid protocols, the result is harmful, if not inhumane.
Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed, by Frances Westley, Brenda Zimmerman and Michael Quinn Patton (2007), helps readers view the world through the lens of complexity science and shift from seeing complexity as an obstacle to harnessing its possibilities. The authors’ delineation of simple, complicated and complex issues helps clarify our thinking about dementia support. Table 1, adapted here to explore dementia support as a complex issue, illustrates how different types of issues call for different solutions.
Dementia support is clearly a complex issue, but the field keeps applying simple or complicated solutions. A locked, segregated memory care unit is a simple solution and also unjust. The implementation of rigid, evidence-based practice protocols is a complicated solution and seldom person-centered. According to Westley, Zimmerman, and Patton (2007), “disasters can occur when complex issues are managed or measured as if they are complicated or even simple” (p. 10). Yes, DISASTERS – a word that we believe describes the current experience of dementia support for many people. While locked doors, segregated living and the latest and greatest interventions may comfort some professional and family care partners, people living with dementia, in general, do not like to be on the receiving end of these so-called solutions. Perhaps this is why people fear dementia more than death itself. It is not so much the memory loss, but the horror of an impersonal, mechanistic and custodial life that relegates people living with dementia to the bottom rung of autonomy – a shift in status from human being and citizen to ward and patient.
