At The Center: Mindfulness And Cognitive Impairment

Is it possible to be mindful if your mind is not functioning well due to cognitive dysfunction? Not only is it possible; it may become easier to live in the now when the past and the future are unimaginable. Kelly introduces you to Mrs. S, a client at the Center, who teaches a lesson about the secret pleasures of dental hygiene.

Transcript

Hello,

And welcome to this short talk on the topic of mindfulness and cognitive impairment.

I offer these thoughts from the perspective of someone who,

Until recently,

Spent most of my days with people affected by dementia.

Until the widespread shutting down of businesses,

The shutting in of people due to the coronavirus pandemic,

I worked in the setting of an adult day care center.

It was intimate,

Hands-on work,

With a population considered to be among the most vulnerable to contagious disease.

The people I consider my teachers are isolated in their homes now.

Their caregivers suddenly cut off from a service that provided necessary hours of respite.

And so the purpose of my sharing these talks with you is to bring them to mind,

Into the light,

Back into community.

Otherwise the risk is high that those families living with dementia will remain out of sight,

Disconnected,

Misunderstood,

Stigmatized.

I hope you'll learn something new in the next few moments,

Something thought-provoking or action-provoking.

The topic of mindfulness is no longer a fringe subject.

It has been discussed from many perspectives relating its benefits for health and happiness.

When my curiosity about meditation and mindfulness presented itself,

I had already been working for a couple of years in dementia care.

And because I've been a word-oriented person for most of my life,

I lingered over that word mindful.

It's certainly good to be mindful.

Being mindful is sometimes considered just being present with whatever one is doing or not doing.

We can chop vegetables mindfully,

Scrub the bathtub mindfully,

Even endure dental procedures mindfully,

Giving thanks for the hands at work for our benefit,

Even as we try to block out the sound of the high-pitched instruments and sometimes the pain.

In fact,

It was pain of another kind that prompted one of my doctors to recommend meditation as a non-pharmaceutical method of pain management.

As I listened to talks and read books and began to attend retreats at local meditation centers,

All the while working with people with brain disease,

I started to wonder about that word mindful.

It describes an idealized state,

A kind of goal.

And there I was spending my days with clients at the center whose minds could not function in ideal ways.

Some had been diagnosed with a specific brain-based disease like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.

Others were just beginning to show signs of cognitive impairment.

Did that mean that people living with dementia weren't capable of mindfulness?

I would argue that the opposite is true.

This is overly simplistic,

But dementia may be thought of as cognitive impairment that interferes with activities of daily living.

Forgetfulness is perhaps the most familiar symptom of cognitive impairment among older people.

The changes to memory can manifest in word-finding problems,

Some of which is part of normal aging,

By the way.

It can also show up in a reduced ability to plan activities.

Memory judgment is a common sign that will alert families to underlying problems with cognition,

Such as trying to warm up a cup of tea directly on a stovetop burner or taking the garbage out and instead of putting it in the trash bin,

Placing it in the trunk of the car.

These are just a couple of examples of things that my own clients did as shared by their caregivers during our after-hours support group meetings.

It can be terribly frightening for family members when formerly competent adults who had always handled responsibilities are no longer able to perform seemingly simple tasks like making tea or taking out the garbage,

Let alone managing finances or family relationships.

I come back to the topic at hand,

Mindfulness and cognitive impairment.

A story comes to mind,

An experience I had a couple of years ago,

Which I think illustrates the enhanced capacity of people living with dementia to attend to the details of the now.

One of the clients at the center was a statuesque beauty.

I'll call her Mrs.

S.

She was 91 years old when we met.

The day she walked into the center with one of her daughters wearing a bright scarf and red,

Red lipstick.

She and I shared a belief in the energetic power of bright colors.

Mrs.

S.

Liked what she liked.

Her much younger husband packs lunch for her consisting of rich red sockeye salmon,

Which she told me was nutritionally superior to any other variety.

And she could be critical of those around her.

I was sometimes grateful that not everyone could hear well when Mrs.

S.

Spoke her mind.

She was one of the more demanding clients at the center,

Not because of disability,

But due to the way she rigidly adhered to her routines.

After lunch,

She liked to brush her teeth.

Clients were always escorted to the restroom for safety.

And so sometimes I would stand next to her while she performed her dental ritual.

Inside a plastic bag,

She carried her toothbrush and closed in a plastic case,

A small tube of toothpaste,

A roll of dental floss and mouthwash.

She would pull a couple of paper towels from the dispenser on the wall,

Lay out her tools as if she were preparing for surgery,

And then she would begin.

The process never took less than 10 minutes.

One day,

Between rinsing her mouth and the reapplication of that red,

Red lipstick as the water was running in the sink,

She stopped and watched it flow down the drain.

She was uncharacteristically silent.

I asked if she felt okay and she smiled with bright confidence and said,

In fact,

She felt wonderful.

Then she told me how much she loved the sound of running water.

And then she told me why.

When she was 16,

She lived in a rural community in Wyoming.

There was a boy she knew and liked,

But their romance was forbidden because he was,

As she described him,

A quarter dark.

One day they were walking together across a low bridge over a rushing river.

It was there that she received,

And I quote,

The sweetest kiss I ever knew.

It was because of that kiss,

She told me,

That she didn't become a nun.

A kiss that she recalled every time she brushed her teeth,

Which happened to be three times a day,

For more than 70 years.

She felt wonderful and her joy made her look wonderful,

Thanks to the association in her mind between the river water and the faucet water,

By paying attention to the sound of something as simple as flowing water.

Thank you for spending a bit of your time on the topic of mindfulness and cognitive impairment.

I hope you enjoyed meeting Mrs.

S,

And I hope you'll go into the world a little more curious about the mysteries of the mind and the stories we all keep inside that can resurface in unexpected moments,

Triggered by something as mundane and miraculous as the sound of running water.

Be watchful for them.

Listen for them in yourself and in others.

And in closing,

I always like to share one of the many beautiful messages from Paramahansa Yogananda,

Who said,

Seek to do brave and lovely things that are left undone by the majority of people.

Give gifts of love and peace to those whom others pass by.

Namaste.

Reviews

Beautiful story! I started listened to your meditations yesterday and look forward to the next one. Thank you

Really awakened the prospect that what maybe yet to come Nameste 🙏🏻

Thank you for this story, and for highlighting beauty and wisdom of our elders.

This is so reassuring to me, dispelling a long-held anxiety of mine. Thank you for relating this.

That was beautiful and touching

Beautiful story with enlightenment. I appreciate it so much.

Thank you for this insight, and your caring way.

Lovely talk! Thank you 🙏🏻

Thank you for your beautiful Talk.
Very grateful, blessing with love.

I was drawn to this talk. I’m a parent of an adult son with CP and an intellectual disability who lives with me. I am also a daughter of a woman, not unlike Ms S who has that glamor streak and also washes her teeth diligently, who has initial stages of dementia. The story resonated so deeply! Perfect timing! Thank you for sharing.🙏

What a beautiful story, to invite us through the veil 🙏🏻

How lovely 🕉🕉🕉🙏🙏🙏

Wow. This was so moving and your voice is perfectly soothing. Such a beautiful story and a great way to start my morning. Thank you for sharing! 🙏

Wow! Great heartfelt inspitational story.
Thank you for sharing