Recently, I went on a trip with my mom to visit my grandma in Wisconsin for Mother's Day. I have a very close relationship with my grandma and try to visit her any opportunity I get. A few years ago, she moved into a town home in a little community with mainly seniors and elderly people. Don't let their age fool you though, they know how to throw a party. While I was visiting, my grandma was telling me how they had a Kentucky Derby party at the club house and the entire neighborhood turned up and dressed the part. My awesome grandma even won a prize for best hat (not to mention sixty bucks betting on the winning horse).
Like most grandmas, she always asks me what's going on in my life, what's new, etc. The first night I was visiting, we stayed up late into the night talking and catching up. She shared with me a story about how she had lunch with a neighbor whose wife had Alzheimer's disease. The wife had been in assisted living since before my grandparents had moved there, so at least 5 years. As we all know, there really isn't too much improvement with AD and it's unimaginably difficult to watch someone you love go down that road. It had been some time since this man's wife recognized him as her husband, and he had come to accept that. The last time he visited her though, she introduced him both as her father and her son. It was a big surprise for him and he wasn't quite sure what it meant.
This is something that I have encountered countless times with families. One of their biggest fears is that their loved one will stop remembering who they are. In some ways, this is true. I had a resident whose daughter came in about once every week or two to visit him. One day, I was with him in his room when she dropped by for a visit. She came in and my resident turned to me and said, "Emily, who is that?" and his daughter instantly burst into tears because, for the very first time, he didn't remember who she was. I felt so guilty that, in that moment, he knew who I was but didn't recognize his daughter. In his defense though, I was wearing a name tag and seeing someone new in our conversation surprised him a little.
After the shock wore off, the daughter came back in to visit with her dad for a while. They spent the afternoon reading books and looking through photo albums. After she left, he told me that someone came to visit him that day. We talked about what they did and throughout his recollection of what happened, the person who visited his changed from his daughter to his wife to his mom and an old friend. "I know she's a busy girl, but it makes me so happy when she visits me."
In this case, and in my grandma's friend's case, and in more cases that I can count, yes, the person forgot who their loved one is. However, they did not forget the feelings they had for the person. They knew that it was someone that they love and that loves them back, a person of comfort and joy, someone they could trust and someone that can support them. Even as a care partner, I feel like my residents can recognize me as someone that can help because of the positivity I try to bring to them.
Someone with dementia will probably mess up and call their daughter their sister or their husband their son. That's ok! They may not be able to place exactly where the person fits into their life, they just know that they do. When my grandma's friend's wife introduced him as her "son," it was just a title she gave him because a son is someone you love unconditionally and loves you back. That's what was going on in her reality at that moment. If she's happy in that moment, that's the only thing that really matters.
