All of us face change, and if we’re honest, we usually just want to reach out and grab something to help stabilize us. Change isn’t easy for anyone, but it can really be difficult when what you’re holding on to for support disappears.
Imagine what it must be like for a person who is given a diagnosis of dementia. Their life, as they know it, will begin to change drastically with the known replaced by the unknown.
This difficult journey can be made less difficult by friends and family who help them acknowledge the complexities of this change and offer help for what lies ahead. Knowing what kind of help to offer is important, and learning from those ahead of us on this journey helps.
When reading blogs and diaries written by those in the early stages of their dementia diagnosis, there is a pattern of concerns that seems to emerge. They want to:
- Stay Connected to Others,
- Continue to Do the Things they Enjoy, and
- Still Contribute Something Worthwhile to Life.
As Lady-Links, we plan our visits with those concerns in mind. Our visits help our dear friends maintain connections to those things important to them. Connecting to others with activities they enjoy while helping them feel a sense of significance and value is a part of our visit strategy.
We can’t always control the changes we face but we can control the way we face those changes. Lady-Links visits help our dear friends enrich their lives by controlling at least one part of the week’s schedule by adding love and laughter through the bonds of friendship.
According to the families of our dear friends, our visits help soften the changes that dementia brings and, as Lady-Links, we’re thankful we can do that.
Such beautiful photo’s of very dear friends….
Thank you, Fern. Yes, our dear friends are very special to us.