A Better Way to Connect Through Dementia with Adria Thompson

Kelly sat down with Adria Thompson, speech-language pathologist and dementia care educator, to explore how small changes in the way we communicate can make a profound difference for people living with dementia and those who care for them.

Kelly and Adria discuss why behaviors often communicate unmet needs, how a caregiver's own emotions can shape every interaction, and practical ways to preserve dignity while supporting safety. Whether you're caring for a loved one today or preparing for the future, this conversation offers compassionate insights that may change the way you see dementia—and the people living with it.

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Steadfast Care Planning podcast is made possible by AMADA Senior Care and Steadfast Insurance LLC.

Come back next time for more helpful guidance! 

Transcript

Kelly Augspurger [00:00:02]:
Hi everyone, Welcome to Steadfast Care Planning, where we plan for care to live well. Most people think dementia is about memory loss, but what if the real challenge is how we communicate, interpret behavior, and respond? I'm Kelly Augspurger, long-term care insurance specialist and your guide. Today I'm joined by Adria Thompson, a speech pathologist and dementia care educator who's helping families better understand what's really happening and how to respond in a way that preserves dignity and connection. Adria, thanks so much for being here.

Adria Thompson [00:00:32]:
Thanks so much for having me, Kelly. I'm excited about this conversation.

Kelly Augspurger [00:00:36]:
Me too, I've been looking forward to this for a really long time. So I'm glad we're finally together and able to break down and maybe bust the myths on what dementia is and how we can best support people with dementia. So I think it would be great to kind of start with a foundation, Adria. So for someone hearing the word dementia, maybe even for the first time, so it's probably not for the first time, but people might not be super familiar with what it really is. So what is it? Beyond memory loss?

Adria Thompson [00:01:02]:
So "dementia", we call it an umbrella term. It's kind of a catch-all term, similar to a term like a "mental health disorder" that tells us that there is something going wrong with someone's mental health. But there's so many different diagnoses that fall under the category of a mental health disorder. There's depression, anxiety, schizophrenia. So those are the specific diagnoses that fall under the umbrella of a "mental health condition". So similarly, "dementia" is just a broad term that means that someone has had a change in their ability to think.

Adria Thompson [00:01:37]:
So that thinking can include memory, it can include problem solving, thought organization, reasoning. It can also include language and communication. And so a change in thinking is the biggest component of the term dementia. But then the other component means that that change in thinking is now severe enough to impact a person's daily life. So they are having trouble paying their bills, managing their medicines, taking a shower, managing their home. And so when we hear that someone has dementia, the only thing that we can assume is that their ability to think, or their cognition we can say, too, has changed and that that change is significant enough that it's interfering with their daily life.

Kelly Augspurger [00:02:24]:
Hmm. Okay, great way to kick us off and explain, give us a good foundation. What do you think is one of the biggest misconceptions about dementia that even well-educated families still get wrong?

Adria Thompson [00:02:35]:
I think that a lot of people assume that dementia is normal at a certain age, that when mom or dad becomes 80 years-old that they're going to get forgetful, they're going to be confused, they're going to wander out of the house. But it is incredibly important to know that dementia, that change in thinking that is affecting a person's daily life, is not normal. It's not to be expected. It's not a normal part of aging. It is a diagnosis. And really, a lot of people who are experiencing cognitive changes as they get older could have a version of cognitive change that could be either significantly reduced, or even reversed. Because a lot of times cognitive changes can come because of a hormonal imbalance, or a vitamin deficiency, or a medication side effect. And when we assume that getting confused and getting dementia is normal, then that person will never go to the doctor and they have to live in an unnecessary state of confusion.

Kelly Augspurger [00:03:41]:
I think that is a great thing to understand and know because I do think it is so common for families to think, "Oh, Mom's 85 now. Yeah, some forgetfulness, memory loss like this is super normal because she's getting older, he's getting older." So, okay, good to know. There could be a lot of other things at play here. This is not just, we're getting older and it's going to happen. I know you talk a lot about communication and you give great tips. You create all kinds of great videos and helpful content about how do we best communicate and break down those interactions with people with dementia. And I know you even say behavior is communication, right? So how can families begin to understand what a behavior is signaling and then adjust how they respond in a way that preserves dignity and maybe even provide an example?

Adria Thompson [00:04:29]:
Yeah. So as a speech language pathologist, speech therapist, it is really important to me for people to understand the communication changes that people with dementia experience. Often when we think about communication, we think about talking, what I'm doing right now. And so many times family members, or friends, will look at someone with dementia and say, "Well, they don't have communication problems because they talk just fine." That's a phrase we hear a lot, "They talk just fine. They actually talk a lot. They talk all the time.

Adria Thompson [00:04:59]:
And so obviously they don't have any communication problems." But it's not that simple. Speaking is just one component of communication. But there's also, of course, reading and writing. There's also understanding the speech of others. There's also body language and all of the nuances of language, of tone and energy and things like that. And so people with dementia will have changes in their ability to communicate. And so when that happens, it may not be super obvious to the average person's eyes, or ears.

Adria Thompson [00:05:34]:
And so when we hear them talking, we think, "Well, then they must understand fine. They must be able to read and write and be able to pick up on these nuances of figures of speech and things." But it's so complicated. Communication is so nuanced and so complicated, and we don't necessarily see that super easily. So when we say that behavior is a form of communication, it actually is. It is for all of us, not just people with dementia. If I were to sit here rolling my eyes and texting on my phone as I'm having this conversation with you, you would perceive a very different version of me than the one that you are perceiving now.

Kelly Augspurger [00:06:15]:
Right.

Adria Thompson [00:06:15]:
The way that I behave is going to give you a lot of information about how I feel and what I actually think, even if it doesn't match up with my words. So when people with dementia have those, even if it's very slight, those changes in communication and their ability to express themselves, or understand others, they start to rely on the parts of communication that they still do have access to, which is body language. And so we can see that maybe when someone is pushing a caregiver away, that is very specifically a communication of, "No, I don't want to do this, or give me a minute, or I don't understand what's happening." And so when we see that, sometimes we just think, "Oh, they're being difficult, or they're refusing to change their shirt," or whatever it is, but really it's just that they're saying, "Hold up, hold on. I don't know what's happening." And I think about it a lot when I travel to places that have a language that I don't speak. We rely so much on gestures and pointing and acting things out.

Adria Thompson [00:07:20]:
And if someone were to, all of the sudden, in a country we do not speak the language of, begin to take our shirt off, you better believe we're going to communicate with our bodies, because we know that our words are not going to be sufficient. So, we can say, "No, don't do that. What are you doing?" But we know they don't speak our language, so it doesn't feel like a good avenue. So we push. And I think that that's really what people with dementia are doing a lot of times. And so we need to change our perspective a little bit, especially when we see resistance. I think that's probably the most obvious example.

Kelly Augspurger [00:07:55]:
That is a great reframe because I think a lot of families do not see it that way. Especially in the moment, you could think, "Oh, there just difficult. Why are they being so difficult? I'm just trying to help them, but they're not allowing me to help them." And so if they don't have the words to communicate it properly, we got to pay attention to those other behaviors.

Kelly Augspurger [00:08:15]:
Whether it is pushing, resisting, whatever it might be. That's really great, Adria. What do you think we're unintentionally doing that might escalate the situation without realizing it?

Adria Thompson [00:08:25]:
I think that our tone and energy can unintentionally communicate something to people with dementia. So, of course, so many caregivers are burned-out, they're frustrated, they're worn thin, they're having to do so much. And when that energy is carried into a care task of, "Let's just get this done. I can't believe I have to do this right now." Oh, like all the frustration that we carry into care tasks, sometimes, even though our words are saying, "Okay, good morning, let's get up," and we're doing our best, if our energy and our tone, our body language is not matching our words, that adds a level of confusion that people with dementia often will have a really hard time with. And so I've spent over a decade working in long-term care communities and nursing homes and memory care communities. And I worked in a memory care all through Covid, and even though I'm a speech language pathologist, I was doing a lot of tasks that are not necessarily, "quote-unquote," my job.

Adria Thompson [00:09:32]:
We were all stretched really thin and we were all just providing care as best as we could. I saw firsthand that the stress that I would bring into rooms with me, even though the person with dementia doesn't quite understand the world that's happening and the stress levels everybody else is experiencing, they sensed it. It really made a difference in a negative way of how we were able to move through different types of care that we needed done and I remember so many times just walking out in the hallway, pulling off my mask and my visor for just a second, getting a breath and kind of resetting myself because I saw that I was not walking into this room and it's not going to be successful and it's not going to be dignified and it's not going to be kind, the way that I was entering into some of those rooms.

Kelly Augspurger [00:10:17]:
So tone and attitude make a huge difference. And I imagine a lot of dementia care caregivers, whether that's a family member, or professional, they are not getting a whole lot of breaks. They're not getting many breaks for long periods of time, so taking care of yourself as a caregiver matters, so that you can be the best caregiver you can be, not just for yourself, so you don't burn out, but also for the care recipient, which we probably could talk about that for a long time, Adria. But we don't have the time today to do that. Let's transition to the role of a speech pathologist, since that's your job. What role do you play in dementia care that most people don't realize, Adria?

Adria Thompson [00:10:59]:
Yeah, so I've had a really fun job transition recently to where I now am a lecturer, a full time faculty member at Eastern Kentucky University. And I teach speech therapy students at both the undergrad and graduate level. And so it's just like a really full circle moment for me. I'm teaching at the university in which I graduated from, alongside some professors that I had.

Kelly Augspurger [00:11:20]:
Oh, so cool.

Adria Thompson [00:11:21]:
Yeah. And so it is very common, and I have been making sure to lay the groundwork for my students now that they have the ability to verbalize what our role is in dementia care, because that was not necessarily anything that was talked about at any length when I was in school. And so as a speech language pathologist, we help people across the lifespan. So from newborns all the way through geriatrics in the 3 areas of communication, which, of course, communication can be speech. And when we have SLPs who work in school systems, we see that a lot, helping kids say their Rs and their Ss, but speech also, as it relates to someone who has a voice disorder, maybe professional singers and things like that, but also people who might have Parkinson's disease and their voice gets really soft. So voice related things, speech related things, but communication at large. And then the second is cognition. And so that's one of the things that people don't understand that a speech therapist does.

Adria Thompson [00:12:23]:
But we help people who have disorders of cognition. So memory, attention, executive functions, all of the complex thinking tasks. And then the third area, which is also not very well known about speech therapists, is that we treat swallowing disorders, or dysphagia. And so anyone pediatric through geriatric who has a difficult time getting food or drinks into their stomachs, so from the second, it passes through their lips all the way until it empties into their stomach is our jurisdiction. And so, we help strengthen that. And so individuals with dementia will, like I said, have difficulties with communication. They will experience changes in cognition, of course, and then many people with dementia will also experience changes in their ability to chew and swallow.

Adria Thompson [00:13:11]:
So we really run the gamut of support across all the stages of dementia.

Kelly Augspurger [00:13:16]:
Quite a range. A lot of job duties that you have and really important. So thanks for breaking that down, Adria. For people living with dementia, what's happening to them when they can't find the words, or they start using incorrect, or even made up words?

Adria Thompson [00:13:31]:
Yeah, so we almost kind of talk about it...it's not a perfect comparison, but it's almost like if you have files in drawers in a cabinet. Through most of your life, if you're looking for a certain word, you know exactly which drawer to open and which file to open and the word is there. Sometimes when we talk about people who have communication changes because of dementia, it's almost as if there was like a tornado and the files were pulled out and we did our best to put the files back where we thought they were. But when you go to open the drawer and look for the file, the word is not there. And sometimes there's another word there, there's a wrong word there. Or, we look to the files around it and we find a similar word, but it's not exactly what we meant. So all of those things we can call paraphasias,

Adria Thompson [00:14:21]:
when we say a word that's not exactly what we intend to. So sometimes it's a word that has a little bit different...instead of saying tornado, we say tortado. So it's like a sound difference.

Kelly Augspurger [00:14:33]:
Okay.

Adria Thompson [00:14:34]:
Sometimes it's a semantic difference. So it's a very similar meaning word, but not quite. So we say, "Where's the keys to the bus?" Instead of, "Where's the keys to the car?" And then sometimes we have what's called like a neologism, which is just a made up word altogether and means nothing. It's a random word. And so all of these things can happen as we see communication changes, but then there's something called anomia, which is where we just can't find the word at all. And so a speech language pathologist can come alongside people with dementia and their caregivers and teach these kind of things so it's better understood. But then also some strategies to help when those moments happen.

Kelly Augspurger [00:15:14]:
Because I imagine logic breaks down in these moments. You're like, "Wait, wait, what are you saying? I don't understand what you're saying." So what should we do instead? When we're not understanding, they're coming up with the incorrect word, or they're making up words. What should caregivers do?

Adria Thompson [00:15:29]:
If they're making up words, those neologisms, or they have paraphasias where it's the wrong word. Pointing out the fact over and over again, "Well, but that's what you said," is not super helpful because they did the best they could. That's the only file they had access to at the moment. So if they say, "Hey, hand me a fork," and when you give them a fork, they say, "Not that," and they actually meant a spoon, you're like, "Well, that's what you said. You said you wanted a fork, I gave you a fork." I understand that that's our natural tendency. But oftentimes when we see communication changes for people with dementia, we see patterns.

Adria Thompson [00:16:06]:
So it's not just random happenings. At the very beginning, when these communications can happen, it might seem kind of random and sporadic, but over time, we start to see these patterns emerge. And so if we see that someone has a tendency to do those semantic switch outs of a close word, but not exactly, then as a care partner, or communication partner, we need to be aware that that could happen. So when they say, "Can you hand me a fork?" We bring a fork, spoon, and a knife over and say, "Which one is it that you need?" Take that step to compensate a little bit. If they say they want spaghetti, you pull it up on your phone, "Spaghetti, Is this what you meant? Is this what it is? Is this what you're asking for?" And so it is an extra step, but it saves us that,

Adria Thompson [00:16:50]:
"Well, that's what you said," "But that's not what I meant." You know the back and forth, and back and forth. So we start to see patterns emerge. And when someone has a difficult time thinking of a word altogether, sometimes it can be helpful for a communication partner to have a systematic way of helping someone describe it. "Okay, so let's forget the word. Tell me, what does it look like? What kind of category does it belong to? Where do we find it? Can you draw it?" And so you can help them. A lot of times that process helps the person with communication issues find the word themselves.

Adria Thompson [00:17:22]:
And if that doesn't happen, then the communication partner starts to get a little bit more information so that we can then guess the word, too. So like I said, all of these strategies and so many more, yeah, speech language pathologists, that's our expertise. So involve us. I think we can really be a big help when those things start to happen.

Kelly Augspurger [00:17:40]:
I'm sure you can. And it sounds like it's being proactive, Adria, right? It's taking an additional step, or two, before bringing them the fork when they really wanted the spoon. Okay, well let's present a few options for them. Which one do they really mean? Because maybe they do want the spoon, but they said the fork. So to prevent some frustration down the line, doing a little bit of work up front in order to make it a little bit more smooth.

Kelly Augspurger [00:18:07]:
Yeah, really good idea.

Kelly Augspurger [00:18:09]:
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Kelly Augspurger [00:18:50]:
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Kelly Augspurger [00:19:13]:
If someone could change just one communication habit today, and I'm sure there's a lot of things you could think of, but what would make, do you think, one of the biggest differences, Adria?

Adria Thompson [00:19:24]:
I think one of my favorite tips that makes a huge difference is to use fewer pronouns with people with memory loss. So what I mean by that is that oftentimes when we are communicating just in normal everyday life, we use pronouns all the time. He, she, it, that, those, this, it. And so I might say, "Oh, Kelly, I saw Susan at the grocery store. She was telling me about her brother and they went to Spain. I didn't know that they had been there, but when I was there I also saw her mom and they didn't know that they were there together." Right? And so the longer the conversation goes and I'm talking about she and they and their, the person with memory loss and attention issues will become completely lost in this story. And so what it could look like is "Oh Kelly, did I tell you I saw Susan at the grocery store? Susan was telling me that she and her brother were going to Spain.

Adria Thompson [00:20:23]:
Susan's mom was also at the grocery store."

Kelly Augspurger [00:20:27]:
Right.

Adria Thompson [00:20:27]:
It doesn't sound that much different to reflect back on what we're actually referring to. And I don't mean that you can never use a pronoun, but if we are mindful to refer back to people by name and places by their name, then it allows people with dementia to stay in conversation and to stay a part of storytelling, especially in social situations, much more efficiently. And it's a small, small thing, but it makes a really big difference. And I also see myself, I hear myself doing it even just in the normal course of a day, like, "Hey, did you grab that thing I asked you to?" You know, be specific. Like, "Did you do it?" "Do you need it?" What's it? Yeah. And some people with dementia might ask, but based on their personality, some people are just nod and just go along with it. So it's inclusive. It's inclusive to use fewer pronouns.

Kelly Augspurger [00:21:28]:
Yes.

Kelly Augspurger [00:21:28]:
And be specific. Call it out. What's the thing? What's it? Who's she? Who's he? I never would have thought of that little communication tip, Adria. That's a really good, practical thing that I think people can actually use with people living with dementia. I know that you have recently done a theme about food in your content, which I've really enjoyed. When someone with dementia stops eating, what's usually really going on, not just behaviorally, but underneath the surface. And there could be multiple things going on, but give us an idea of what this could mean.

Adria Thompson [00:22:02]:
Yeah. So there will come a time, typically when we see people with dementia less interested in food. They're not initiating feeding themselves. Maybe they don't sit at the table very long, and that can then turn into them losing weight. And so this is a really scary time for caregivers, because if someone can go a week without a bath, it's not ideal, but it can happen. But you can't go a week without eating. This is a high pressure, really important task.

Adria Thompson [00:22:31]:
And so when eating and drinking become difficult, it adds a lot of stress to the situation, and it feels really big because it is. I think the first thing to know is that when someone begins to sit in front of food and then not initiate eating, that doesn't mean that they're not hungry. That doesn't also mean that they don't want to eat, or that they have lost the ability to. I think a lot of times caregivers feel like it's either the person with dementia feeds themselves and if they don't, then they have to be fed, that those are the two options. But there is a wide spectrum in-between those two tasks, those two forms of assistance. So if someone begins to just sit in front of their food and not really eat that doesn't mean that we have to then start hand feeding them. It might just look like us picking up their fork and putting it in their dominant hand in a position that they would typically use a fork and then say, "Take a bite." They just need a little bit of a cue to get started.

Adria Thompson [00:23:38]:
We call this initiation. Getting started. That can become really difficult for people with dementia for all tasks, not just eating, brushing their teeth, or going to the bathroom, they don't know the first step. And I know it sounds so crazy to think like, "Well, they've done it a thousand times." Yeah, but the brain changes and initiation becomes difficult. And for many people with dementia, once they get started eating, then they can keep going and they can feed themselves for a while. Maybe they sit their fork down, they take a drink, and they need to get started again.

Adria Thompson [00:24:09]:
But sometimes those little things that we can do to kind of get them going. But eventually there will be a time in a certain stage of dementia, which typically around the time that people become more bed bound and they're not moving around as much and they're not speaking as much, around that same time, we will also see swallowing severely be impacted. Now, like I said, this is a generalized statement and is not true necessarily for every single individual. But it's usually around that time where we see that truly people stop eating. And that's just the body's natural way of knowing that first of all, they're not needing lots of calories, they're not walking, they're not moving around. Their actual needs for calories are lower, but also their body systems are slower. And so they can't handle the same amount of food that they had in the past. And so that's really where we kind of turn towards comfort feeding.

Adria Thompson [00:25:10]:
A lot of times, if they want ice cream every meal, every day like, "Heck yeah," but a speech language pathologist, a doctor, palliative care, hospice care, those kind of teams can really help you navigate so that you're not feeling like you have to make those kinds of decisions. But if you're starting to notice a disinterest in food before you get to that point, it could just be that they need a little bit of help getting started and getting going.

Kelly Augspurger [00:25:36]:
They need some encouragement and some initiation. A cue, right? A verbal cue. "Take a bite." I like that. Very simple.

Kelly Augspurger [00:25:43]:
"Take a bite."

Kelly Augspurger [00:25:44]:
Well, Adria, at what point does decision making really start to change for people living with dementia? And how can families spot that early?

Adria Thompson [00:25:52]:
So if you're starting to have questions about someone in your life, let's even pull dementia out of the equation. So you have a parent or a sibling or someone in your life who you're noticing some forgetfulness, you're noticing some confusion. When cognitive changes become noticeable by others, by definition, that is something that they need to go to the doctor about. That is something that's not normal aging. There is a kind of middle ground between normal aging and dementia that we call mild cognitive impairment. At that stage of mild cognitive impairment, when other people start to notice, at this point, like I said, it could be a vitamin deficiency, we get the right vitamin in their system and they get a little better. But once we start dipping into dementia and when someone begins to have their daily life impacted and their ability to care for themselves, then determining consent and all of their ability to make decisions can become really murky and complicated. And for some people with certain types of dementia, they might have really good days. Especially if I think about Lewy Body Dementia, they fluctuate so much.

Adria Thompson [00:27:05]:
So they can have moments of really intense confusion that makes you think, "Oh, my gosh, we have to step in and do 24-7 care." And then a couple hours later, they seem to be completely with it, again. So it gets murky and it gets difficult. But that is why when these very first symptoms start showing up, number one, we need to go to a doctor. And number two, we need to start thinking about, maybe we need to ask you some hard questions about your future, get some things in place, because that's going to for sure be that time where they can still make decisions, they can still participate in tough conversations.

Kelly Augspurger [00:27:41]:
How do you preserve the dignity and independence while still keeping someone safe? Everybody wants that, right? Everybody wants dignity, everybody wants independence. And as dementia progresses over time and it becomes more difficult to communicate, how do we do that, Adria?

Adria Thompson [00:27:57]:
It's not an easy like, "Oh, okay, here's step one, two, three, on how to do it." If the listeners are waiting for that, I'm sorry.

Kelly Augspurger [00:28:08]:
Well, I'm sure you have at least some good insights on what are some things that we can do.

Adria Thompson [00:28:13]:
So I think the biggest thing when it comes to dignity, is knowing the person well and knowing who they are. Because dignity for one person might look different for another person. And that's with or without dementia. Some people like for someone to come into the room and say, "Hi there, grandpa, you look so cute in your suspenders," some people might eat that up and love it.

Kelly Augspurger [00:28:39]:
Sure.

Adria Thompson [00:28:40]:
Other people, not at all, they're gonna feel condescending. So I think knowing the person well is really important. And keeping tabs on really, who are they? How do they see themselves? What are their values? What is their identity? But also sometimes our quest for making someone safe actually removes a lot of humanity from them. And this is a really tough juggling act that we see going on in long-term care communities, nursing homes, memory cares, every single day. When we prioritize safety above all else, sometimes that means that they then can't go on their neighborhood walk that they've always wanted to, because that involves some kind of risk. And when we prioritize safety, we like to remove as many risks as possible.

Adria Thompson [00:29:32]:
But I'm sure, Kelly, that you and I do things every day that incur some risk, but we feel like it's worth doing. Walking...in the area of town I live in, it does not have sidewalks. If I go on a walk, there's a risk there. But, sometimes on beautiful days, I'm willing to take that risk. And so it can be difficult. But having a good understanding of what that person has always valued and what they want for themselves can really help guide caregivers to know what decisions to make and make it as dignified as possible. But just, I would say, realize that safety does not always have to be the top priority.

Adria Thompson [00:30:13]:
If you feel like a little bit of risk, allowing grandpa to have his pocket knife so he can whittle sticks...yeah, there's some risk there. But also, he loves to do it. So we have to make those tough decisions sometimes.

Kelly Augspurger [00:30:27]:
Oh, gosh, safety, absolutely. That is number one that I hear over and over again, "How can we safely help people?" Whether it's people living with dementia, maybe another cognitive impairment, or even if there's a physical limitation, safety is always at the top of the list. So balancing that with dignity and independence, not easy. It's like a balancing act. But I even think about, okay, we want to go for a walk, or our loved one wants to go for a walk and they have dementia, that just probably means someone goes with them.

Kelly Augspurger [00:30:56]:
So that can help maybe reduce some of that risk, but they're still able to go and enjoy that activity to maintain some of that dignity and independence. So maybe it's, "Yes, we're reducing the risk, we're keeping them safe," but is there a way that we can interject something, or someone to help them complete that task? So, yeah, really good insight there, Adria. What do you think about a dementia playbook? So if every family had one, a dementia playbook, what do you think are the 3 rules you'd want them to follow?

Adria Thompson [00:31:27]:
The biggest thing I want people to believe about people with dementia is that everything makes sense to them. That would be page one.

Kelly Augspurger [00:31:34]:
Okay.

Adria Thompson [00:31:35]:
And the reason why I think that's so important is that oftentimes we will look at people with dementia and some of the decisions that they make, especially in the more moderate stages, and think, "Oh, my gosh, how unreasonable. What are they doing? That's crazy. Why are they wearing five shirts? That doesn't make any sense. What are you doing?" And so you come up and you say, "Look, you have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 shirts on. Come on." And so I think when we come at situations like that and believe that everything they're doing makes sense to them, then perhaps we might have the perspective of, "Oh, they probably didn't look down and have the recognition that they're already wearing a shirt. They saw a shirt they wanted to wear and they put it on. And then later, a few minutes later, they have forgotten that because they have short term memory loss and they saw a shirt and they wanted to put it on."

Adria Thompson [00:32:24]:
That happened five times. So another good example is when people don't want to shower and they say that they already have. I think, well, doesn't that make sense then? If I believed that I already showered like two hours ago, why would I shower again?

Kelly Augspurger [00:32:37]:
Right. You're good, you're clean.

Adria Thompson [00:32:39]:
Yeah, I'm clean. So when we see that, we think, "Okay, then how can we get them to agree to shower again?" In their world, how could we get them to shower again? So everything they do makes sense to them, number one. I think second is that knowing that every stage is a season and the hard thing that is hard right now is not always going to be hard. And that's because dementia is ever changing. One of the words we use sometimes is degenerative, or deteriorating. That is a hard reality to live in, to know that they're getting worse over time. But at the same time, that means that the hard thing that is hard today, in six months might not ever even be part of our day at all.

Adria Thompson [00:33:22]:
And so, as people change, symptoms progress. The really terrible things that caregivers are facing right now, a lot of times they think, "Well, am I going to have to do this for 7 more years or, whatever?" No. Because dementia changes. The challenges change, too. So it's ever evolving and it changes. And then I think the third biggest thing is to never get stuck in the, "We have tried everything and nothing works," world. That is the most hopeless statement that I have ever heard from a caregiver and I hear it often is, "Well, we've tried everything and nothing works."

Adria Thompson [00:34:00]:
That feels really heavy. And I can't imagine believing that. And so that's why I think on my page and I named my business Be Light is...you referred to the food videos I'm doing right now. I have like 20 videos about how to get someone to eat a little bit more, or to drink a little bit more. And they're all different techniques, they're all different strategies, and one is not going to work and the next might. But when we start to feel like we tried everything and nothing works, it's a super hopeless feeling. And that's a really scary place for a caregiver to get stuck in. So I would encourage this playbook to believe that I haven't found the right thing yet.

Adria Thompson [00:34:43]:
That feels a little bit more hopeful.

Kelly Augspurger [00:34:45]:
Yeah. Oh, good 3 rules and encouragements there, Adria. I really like that they just haven't found the right thing, yet. Keep looking, keep trying. There's probably something else that you can do to improve the situation. All right, now let's make a transition into what I call the lightning round, Adria.

Kelly Augspurger [00:35:02]:
So I'm just going to give you 3 sentences and I just want you to fill in the blank, first thing that comes to your mind. No over explaining it. We're just going to fill in the blank. Okay, so the first one is: One thing I wish every family understood about dementia is: That they're not alone. Great. The most underrated way to better connect with someone living with dementia is: Eye contact. Ooh, good. And if you feel overwhelmed caring for someone with dementia remember:

Adria Thompson [00:35:31]:
That love is the biggest need that someone with dementia has. And as long as you're doing that, then that's the most important.

Kelly Augspurger [00:35:38]:
That's precious. That's so precious. I'm getting choked up. Adria, where can people find more information about you and your services?

Adria Thompson [00:35:47]:
So, my website is BeLightCare.com but you can also find me on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook @BeLightCare

Kelly Augspurger [00:35:58]:
Awesome.

Kelly Augspurger [00:35:59]:
Adria,

Kelly Augspurger [00:35:59]:
I think one of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that dementia doesn't just impact memory. This is not just memory loss. It impacts communication, decision making, and ultimately how care unfolds for a family. Which I think, having a plan and having professionals, having resources to be able to support you is extremely important. And I know, like your role as a speech pathologist and other people that have your same role, it's crucial. So anybody listening out there, if you aren't currently partnering with a speech pathologist and you know someone that's living with dementia, what are you waiting for? Just do it. Contact someone, get in connection with them. Not just for the person with dementia, but for yourself, too. It probably will help everybody's quality of life.

Kelly Augspurger [00:36:46]:
So, Adria, thanks so much for your insights today and your expertise, sharing. I like to say, create a plan, fund the plan, share it with those you love. I think everybody's families will be grateful for it in the long run. So thanks so much.

Adria Thompson [00:37:02]:
Thank you.