I’ve been absent for a bit. Sorry about that. I had a long bout of a Covid-like virus in November and I’ve been scrambling to catch up ever since. I didn’t feel like writing anything until just recently, and now my brain is lighting up with ideas. Here’s the first one…..
We just had a wonderful speaker and trainer come to our local public library to talk about relationship-based dementia care. Given the fact that one in three seniors over 65 has some form of dementia, you would have expected a big crowd, right? And given that dementia and Alzheimer’s is the 6th leading cause of death in America (more than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined), you’d think it would have been standing room only. And when you realize that those are current numbers, that it’s only getting worse and that that number is expected to double in the next 20 years, there must have been a huge audience, right? Surely there were physicians, hospice workers, clergy, pastors, adult day care providers, memory care providers, nurses and CNA’s in attendance, right? Wrong. Fewer than 2 dozen people were in attendance.
Allow me to step up onto my soapbox for a moment. Actually, I’m stepping up to the pulpit to talk to the Church. Because of our belief in the dignity of life that comes from being made in the image of God, the Church is uniquely positioned to address the looming aging crisis in this country. We live in a society that does not value unborn babies; why would they value the feeble lives of the elderly? The Church MUST rise up to live out a more consistent pro-life ethic, from the womb to the natural grave.
We make sure our churches are accessible for people with different abilities. We have ramps, handrails, reserved seating, sign language providers; but do we make accommodations for folks living with a brain disease? When a baby is crying or a toddler is acting out in the middle of a church service, we all smile, perhaps secretly feeling a bit sorry for the parent who is wrangling the child, but we don’t walk past them as if they don’t exist when church is over. In fact, we might even seek that parent out, talk about how cute the child is, and then offer sympathetic words of encouragement for the parent. Yet if an older adult with dementia shouted a cuss word in the middle of a sermon, would we react in the same way? Would we smile with compassion and then go back to listening to the sermon, or would we think how inappropriate that adult was and how terrible his caregiver was for not “handling” him well enough? Would we think it might just be better for everyone if he stayed home from now on? Afterall, he could watch the service from home; surely he’d be more comfortable doing that anyway. Or would we seek out that adult and his caregiver after the service to check on them both and to assure them of our love and support? Probably not. Afterall, what would we say? What will the person with brain disease say? It might be too awkward.
Church, we MUST be prepared for the increasing number of people living with dementia and related brain diseases. They’re already sitting in our pews. Eventually, their brains are going to cause them to act in a way that is not “normal” or “appropriate.” They can’t help it. Their brain is sick.
One of the best things we can do to prepare is to educate ourselves about aging and brain decline. Knowledge equips us to show the proper compassion and kindness our brothers and sisters deserve. Did you know that cuss words (forbidden words) are stored in a different part of the brain than language? “Vocabulary, speech production, and language comprehension are all typically stored in our left temporal lobe. Social chit-chat, rhythm (music, poetry, prayer, and counting), and (uh-oh) forbidden words are stored in our right temporal lobe. If a person is living with dementia, there is a good chance that the left temporal lobe, the part of the brain they typically go to for language, isn’t giving them the answer they are looking for. Their brain can then redirect to the other side, and what words are found there? Yep – the forbidden words. These words are stored in a different part of the brain than traditional vocabulary words because when we learned them, we knew they were different. They weren’t to be said around just anyone, if at all. It doesn’t mean we don’t know what they mean or haven’t thought them from time to time, it just means that our brain categorized them in a different way and, most of the time, our prefrontal cortex kept us from using them. With dementia being present, the prefrontal cortex and the left temporal lobe are being lost, which means those forbidden words might not seem so forbidden now.” (https://teepasnow.com/blog/why-people-living-with-dementia-use-forbidden-words-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/)
A child who is misbehaving in church can be reprimanded; a person with dementia should never be punished or corrected when they say or do inappropriate things. That would be like getting mad at someone and punishing them because they have heart disease. And yet church communities often punish people living with dementia. We punish them by avoiding them, by not inviting them and their caregivers over for dinner, by looking at them in disbelief when they act in a way that makes us uncomfortable. We tend to respond to the way they make US feel, rather than responding by trying to imagine how they must feel–frustrated because they can’t find the right words or confused because they sometimes can’t understand or follow what’s going on around them.
We also assume that people with brain disease have nothing to offer us, no way to continue to serve in the body of Christ. How can someone who doesn’t remember her own name actively participate in church? What if that person doesn’t even remember Jesus any longer? Why should I go visit the lady in the nursing home who has Alzheimer’s if she’s not even going to remember that I came?
We have to wrestle with these concepts. In all likelihood, each of us will be affected by dementia, whether we have it ourselves or we care for someone who does, and both groups of people will need the support of their brothers and sisters in Christ in their local church.