Walk a day in my shoes

We will never completely understand the struggle one goes through until we experience their pain first-hand; so, if you were given the opportunity to walk a day in somebody else’s shoes, would you collapse taking the first few steps?

American caregivers of loved ones with dementia were recently put to the test in an eye-opening new venture.

Opening last week, the centre welcomed the public to participate in virtual dementia tours; walk-through experiences that provide a real-life application of living with dementia; allowing caregivers at Autumn Leaves Alzheimer’s and Memory Care Residence in McKinney, the opportunity to come close to experiencing a day in the life of their dementia-affected loved ones.

Memory can be a frustrating thing when it is no longer readily available, yet those who suffer from dementia are not the only ones who become frustrated.

“We’ve all heard of Alzheimer’s and dementia, and there are lots of people who know someone who’s been affected by them,” Chad Anderson, president of Constant Care Family Management (CCFM), who runs Autumn Leaves, says.

“There are many adult children, whose parents are going through this, and it is helpful for them to come out and see what mum or dad are really going through, what their world is like with the disease,” he says.

The tour is set up in a room at Autumn Leaves, where laundry is sprawled across the bed, the radio and TV are on and the window curtains are shut — all of which adds to the confusion that people with dementia regularly experience.

Participants wear gloves and socks lined with popcorn kernels and must write with an ink pen as part of an exercise that shows them how it feels to have defective fine motor skills, an effect that occurs in later stages of Alzheimer’s and dementia. The participants must also fold the laundry while wearing a pair of fogged goggles and complete other tasks upon entering the room.

Staff designed the tours to accommodate all forms and stages of dementia.

“Every person’s experience with dementia is unique to them because every person is unique, but there are common symptoms,” Lori Gillen, one of the creators of the tour, says.

“The virtual tours are meant to replicate almost everything that could be going on, not just what one individual is experiencing. It’s the best that we can do to open the door to understanding for people on the outside who want some commonality,” she says.

Autumn Leaves co-founder, Jane Anderson, says there are many people who fear Alzheimer’s, but the Centre is working hard to ease the anxiety and start treating people with Alzheimer’s with the love and appreciation they deserve.

After further research and tweaking of similar tours that exist at other memory care residences, Autumn Leaves’ employees realised there was a missing piece.

“The big gap that we found was there were a number of different ways you could execute a tour, but nobody was explaining what they had just gone through; nobody was making a connection,” Ms Anderson says.

“What we wanted to do was marry the experience with an explanation so that caregivers walked away not only knowing what it feels like to experience a little bit of dementia but also what it all means and how they can help their loved ones through it.”

Staff at Autumn Leaves say the true beneficiaries of such a virtual experience could be residents’ family members.

“This experience for most people is really unlike anything they’ve ever seen. It’s not a normal thing that you can go out and experience on a typical day. For people to be able to see a little bit of that wall makes them better caregivers and allows them to have a stronger connection with their loved one.”

How do you think you would go walking in the shoes of your struggling loved one? Share your thoughts on this article by commenting in the box below.