{"id":329,"date":"2019-08-08T14:49:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-08T21:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portolagardens.ciminocare.com\/?p=329"},"modified":"2019-08-08T14:49:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T21:49:00","slug":"returning-to-the-past-people-with-alzheimers-and-other-dementias-retain-older-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ciminocare.com\/portola-gardens\/returning-to-the-past-people-with-alzheimers-and-other-dementias-retain-older-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"Returning to the Past: People with Alzheimer\u2019s and Other Dementias Retain Older Memories"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Caregivers and family members of adults with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alz.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alzheimer\u2019s<\/a> and other dementias notice their loved ones often talk about the distant past\u2014and sometimes believe they\u2019re still living in those past memories.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People with dementia start to lose the ability to capture, retain, and retrieve recent memories\u2014sometimes even things that happened just a few moments ago. But longer-term memories, which are well encoded in a person\u2019s brain, tend to remain strong longer than more recent events. And memories of children, work, childhood, and other past events that are happy ones have likely been revisited often during the person\u2019s life, so they\u2019re more entrenched in the brain, and more&nbsp;easily&nbsp;recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the disease progresses, long-term memories will be affected as well, and the person will have greater difficulty accurately recalling things that happened a long&nbsp;time&nbsp;ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How should&nbsp;you&nbsp;respond?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Families and friends of those with dementia often do not know how to respond when their loved ones keep talking about times long in the past\u2014especially when the older adult believes that those times are taking place right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of correcting, criticizing, or arguing, families and caregivers might try to enter their older loved one\u2019s reality, thereby building trust and empathy, and reducing anxiety. Known as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.verywellhealth.com\/using-validation-therapy-for-people-with-dementia-98683\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">validation therapy<\/a>,\u201d many families and caregivers use this technique instinctively without knowing&nbsp;its&nbsp;name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another technique called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/eldercarealliance.org\/blog\/benefits-reminiscence-therapy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reminiscence therapy<\/a>\u201d\u00a0can enliven mood, increase well-being, and promote pleasant behavior in adults with dementia as well as those around them. This technique emphasizes active discussion of past activities, events, and experiences\u2014often with the help of photographs, music, and&nbsp;familiar&nbsp;items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are some ideas for connecting with those&nbsp;with&nbsp;dementia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Encourage reminiscing. People with dementia (like the rest of us) want to connect and talk. Sharing memories is a happy activity.<\/li><li>Try not to force the person to remember things that happened recently. Doing so often creates frustration and agitation\u2014for both of you.<\/li><li>Try using a familiar object to prompt conversation: a favorite book, a souvenir from a vacation, a \u201cvintage\u201d item of clothing.<\/li><li>Consider making a photo album that tells the person\u2019s life story. You can make it together and revisit it often. Perhaps keep adding recent photos.<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caregivers and family members of adults with Alzheimer\u2019s and other dementias notice their loved ones often talk about the distant past\u2014and sometimes believe they\u2019re still living in those past memories.\u00a0 People with dementia start to lose the ability to capture, retain, and retrieve recent memories\u2014sometimes even things that happened just a few moments ago. But [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-information"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ciminocare.com\/portola-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ciminocare.com\/portola-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ciminocare.com\/portola-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ciminocare.com\/portola-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ciminocare.com\/portola-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ciminocare.com\/portola-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ciminocare.com\/portola-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ciminocare.com\/portola-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ciminocare.com\/portola-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ciminocare.com\/portola-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}