What flowers and dementia taught me

I thought that taking mum to a café with a garden centre with my sister would be enjoyable.  She loved drinking coffee, and she used to be a florist back in Switzerland.  All those beautiful flowers would surely bring back all her happy memories.

I was so wrong!

Within 10 minutes of sitting down at the café, Mum would say “I want to go home”.  When the coffee and cake arrived, she would sometimes say, “I don’t like this”, even though she would eat and drink it all with relish.  She would often appear grumpy, anxious and it was sometimes difficult to have a pleasant conversation with her. 

We would show her around the garden centre thinking it would improve her mood.  But no.  As mum went around smelling the beautiful flowers she would say “I used to know the name of this, but I can’t remember it now”.   She would seem agitated and frustrated. 

Going to the toilet was a hassle.  She was capable of going by herself, but she would constantly call for us and we would have to help her.  Statements like “I don’t know where I am” and “I want to go home” became repetitive.   It felt like she was being ungrateful and incapable of enjoying the morning out with her daughters.   

Over time I came to realise that for this morning to be enjoyable, something needed to change.  I recognised that I had labelled mum to explain her behaviour; she was annoying, ungrateful, unwilling, repetitive, agitated, frustrated, grumpy, anxious and difficult.  I saw her as ‘challenging’, it was her fault and so I didn’t need to look at myself or the situation. 

Instead, what I needed to do was understand what mum was trying to tell me, and accept that what I thought was good for mum actually wasn’t.  I had to put my ego aside and look at things from mum’s point of view; in actual fact I was putting her in a situation that made her feel uncomfortable and stressed. 

I believe she was in sensory over-load in an unfamiliar environment.  An outdoor café is a busy and fast environment, it often has bright sunlight, it’s noisy with music playing and people chatting, has lots of unfamiliar faces, and toilets are often difficult to navigate with a décor that is white on white.   If that were me, I would have felt over-whelmed, confused, anxious and at times, unsafe. 

Mum was also being constantly reminded that she had forgotten flowers and plants that used to be very familiar to her.  I would have found that incredibly frustrating and stressful. 

In this situation, if we were honest, many of us would prefer to stay at home in peace, calm and familiarity.  Which is what I think mum actually needed and wanted, but due to her brain changes she was unable to articulate and tell us this.  So instead, she told us indirectly by her inappropriate mood, actions and sometimes down-right rudeness. 

Such reactions have often been seen as ‘challenging behaviours’ for a person living with dementia, which I think is an unfair and unkind label.  Instead, I would say that such reactions is the person trying to tell you something.  They may feel that the environment is confusing, unfamiliar, unkind, undignified or frightening.  They may be in pain, thirsty, hungry or tired.  Or the world around them may not seem logical or reasonable to their reality, time and place.  And just like you and I, they react to how this makes them feel – anxious, scared, bewildered, irritated, frustrated, annoyed; the list goes on!  

The next time you see someone living with dementia react in a different way, I encourage you to stop and ask yourself two questions; “how might I feel and react if that were me?” and “what is the person trying to tell me?”.   

You may not always find the answer, but you will gain more understanding of how the person might be feeling, and what they need and want. 

Therein lies the magic to ensuring dignity and respect for all those living with dementia.