When the Patient Has Dementia
When the Patient Has Dementia
Richard is back! In this month’s webinar, he will tell us about his experience of undergoing surgery and of being a hospital patient — as a person with dementia, and he will talk about how this experience can be improved and made safer. Please join us and be ready to provide your own input about your experiences as a patient with dementia in the medical system.
About Richard Taylor, PhD
Ten years ago, a noted neurologist told Richard Taylor, “You have dementia, probably of the Alzheimer’s type.”
Six years ago, he discovered that thinking, speaking, and writing about what it was like for him to live with this condition had quite unexpectedly brought him a new sense of purpose to his life.
Today, he speaks and writes of his experiences living with Alzheimer’s from the inside out for two important reasons. First, in the hopes that his presentation will convince folks not living with dementia that folks who are living with dementia are and will always be whole and complete human beings. Still possessing all the needs and wants everyone who does not have dementia possesses. And second, he hopes that his witness will encourage others living with the disabilities associated with dementia to stand up and speak out. After all, if folks living with the symptoms do not speak out, how will anyone really know what it is like live with dementia?
He has literally traveled around the world, many times – standing up and speaking out; meeting with kindred spirits and supporting care partners: sharing his belief that people living with dementia are not fading away, and the diagnosis of probable Alzheimer’s does not signal the start of the long goodbye. He sees everyone as being neither half-empty, nor half-full. It is the wrong the question to ask, the wrong way to look at folks, especially those folks living with the symptoms of dementia.
He promotes what he terms ‘humanizing dementia care’. A transactional approach to caregiving that humanizes the giver and the receiver; both at the same time.
Click here to visit Richard’s website.
