[adinserter block=”2″]
This week, I got to visit the assisted living homes with the residents who have dementia and Alzheimer’s. It’s always a little bit of an adventure. You don’t know who will remember you and who won’t. If you haven’t seen someone before, you don’t always know what stage they’re at, or if they have other things going on besides dementia. My human’s always glad for the regulars because she knows what to expect.
We did see quite a few regulars at the first house. The nonverbal woman who pets me with heavy hands spent a lot of time slowly petting me and smiling. I also saw the woman who asks for high fives from me, and the sweet couple who live there together. One man we didn’t know had a visitor. I don’t think it was his daughter because she called him by his first name, and she and my human chatted a bit while I visited.
We saw a couple of newer men who spoke Spanish and English. One had difficulty communicating, but the other was chatty! He talked a lot about his son, who had lots of pets. There was also a lady we didn’t know very well dozing on a sofa. Usually we just leave them alone because my human doesn’t want to disturb them. But she woke up and was so happy to see me!
At the second house, we saw some familiar faces too, and a couple we didn’t. One was a very nice woman who talked so coherently that my human didn’t realize nothing was sinking in until she repeated the same questions over again. When this happens, my human always just repeats the answer like she never said it the first time. She’s used to it because it happens a lot.
We did have one weird thing happen at the second house. There was a man wearing a skirt, lace top and pumps. Which my human doesn’t find at all strange, but they were talking completely incoherently and behaving erratically. They really liked me and petted me a lot, but my human kept a watchful eye because of their behavior. They followed us, talking loudly while we were visiting another resident. The lady was familiar with this person, and told us they were complaining because they thought they won the Wheel of Fortune and never got their money.
My human was a little relieved when the visit at the second house was over! She’s very protective of me, and she worries when people behave unpredictably. But everyone, even the Wheel of Fortune person, were really pretty nice.
Here are some of my other visits to the assisted living residences:
[adinserter block=”2″]
Source link
