Dementia Reimagined: A New Approach from a Bioethicist and Influencer
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Dr. Patricia (Tia) Powell’s grandmother had dementia and she remembers vividly watching her mother care for her. Once, when her grandmother was in the later stages of the disease, her mother brought her grandmother out onto the porch, which was difficult because her grandmother had trouble with mobility. Her mother put her grandmother in an easy chair and put her feet up and tucked in, around her
grandmother's legs, an afghan that her grandmother herself had crocheted, many, many years before, when she'd still been able to crochet.
After all the effort, Dr. Powell’s mother looked at her grandmother and said, “Mother, how is that?”- incredibly proud of her work at trying to make her mother comfortable. Dr. Powell’s grandmother had been mute for many months before that, as commonly happens at the end of dementia. But you could see that she was struggling to say something. She struggled and struggled and with great might pulled out a
single word. She looked at Dr. Powell's mother and said, “lousy.”
It hurt Dr. Powell’s mother's feelings. But for Dr. Powell, hearing that, she thought to herself, "it was really lousy for her grandmother. Dementia's lousy. Cancer's lousy. Serious illness is lousy. But isn't there something more we can do here? Is there a way we could think about this? Is there a way you could help that mother and that daughter find a dementia that's maybe a little bit less
lousy?"
A Different Approach to Dementia Care
(Pictured: Dr. Tia Powell)
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