Dementia Interpreter®
Course Content
- Course Introduction
- Become a Dementia Interpreter®
- Module 1 - Definitions
- Module 2 - Communication
- Module 3 - Attitude
- Module 4 - Words and Terms
- Module 5 - Making Changes
- Module 6 - Changing Circumstances
- Module 7 - Body Language
- Module 8 - Experiential Training Introduction
- Module 9 - Changes Over Time
- Module 10 - Questions
- Experiential Training - Part 1
- Experiential Training - Part 2
- Experiential Training - Part 3
- Experiential Training - Part 4
- Experiential Training - Part 5
- Summary
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Experiential Training - Part 2
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Right, are you all ready for the first activity then? Yes. Brilliant stuff. So, I have got some equipment here that I am going to get you guys to wear, which is going to impair your ability to speak. So, I am going to pass these down the line, if you can just take that and pass it down for me. In your boxes, you will all have a little mouthpiece and very, very, very simple to use. You just pop it in your mouth.. So, could you all just take them out the boxes for me, pop them in your mouths and could you all just tell me how wonderful a trainer I am.. Wonderful, need a pay rise? Fantastic. Right, if you want to pop them in the boxes for a second. I am going to give you all a statement to read out, so can you pass that down the line for me. Do not show anyone else your statement and do not look at yours yet either. Now, the rules for this activity are very, very simple. With your mouthpiece in, you are going to communicate what is on your card to your other two colleagues. So, you are going to say it in full. They are then going to repeat it back to you word for word. If they do not get it perfect, if there is one word missing or something slightly out of order, you go again. So, you say your statement, they repeat it back and you keep going until they get it 100% right. Sound good? Yeah. All looking forward to this? Yeah. Absolutely. Fantastic stuff. I think, Kate, you look really keen. So, I think we will start down in the middle with Kate. So, you are going to pop your mouthpiece in. When you are ready.. Anything? Not a thing. No? You know the rules.. No. No. Off you go.. Anything at all? Nothing. No. Nothing at all. Either they are really struggling or they do not like you very much. Right, off you go again.. Anything? No. Nothing. I think we are going to give Kate a break there because I think she might start lashing out. Dennis, do you want to have a little go with your statement?. Oh Kate is getting her revenge here. Off you go again.. I do not think they are getting... Is there anything else you can use to try and communicate that?. To you.. Smile.. To you.. Happy. To you. I gave you that card and I do not know what you are saying. Happy birthday to you.. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you.. Fred. Fred. Happy birthday to Fred. There we go.. Lovely, good job. Good job, Dennis. Right, so now you will crush it. Dennis has smashed that. Okay.. No. No.. Oh. She is singing a song.. Wash the spider out. So, what was that bit? I do not know the words. Incy wincy... I do not know the words, but I... I do not know the words either. You know the rules. You know the rules.. Wash the spider away?. Oh. No. Incy wincy spider... Climbed the waterspout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Lovely job. Lovely job. Very impressive, very impressive. Well done. So, how did you all feel doing that? Let is start down this end with Rachel, how did you feel with that? Once you guys started picking up on it, it was actually really good because then that encouraged me to give you more so you could get the words as well, because you had said that you did not actually know the words to the song, which is very shameful, you too as well. So, for me, 'cause I know that song as when I learnt it, so the being able to do the climbed up. Yeah. Yeah. And then that kind of got you guys to carry on as well, but my first... So getting that response, that helped to... Yeah. When I first started saying it, you did not understand it, but then being able to try and sing along with it, you then got kind of the tune of it, so then was understanding it. At the start when they could not get what you were trying to say, before you started to use the tune, how would you describe your emotions then? It is kind of frustrating because I think that it was like, "How do you not get this? This is real basics." Frustration is going to be a big thing... And I am sure you guys both experience some frustration there. We can all appreciate cannot we if someone is struggling to get something across. When we are struggling to get something across to people, it is frustrating, and the longer it goes on and we are going to come to you Kate here in a minute, the more that frustration will build as you go. So Dennis, how did you feel? Very much the same. But I tried to find another a way to communicate and that is where the hand gestures came in. Yeah. So, some interesting hand gestures that you use there. Yeah. Birthday is quite a difficult one, is not it. Yes. What were you using for birthday? Obviously the smile... And pointing you to as in you and then trying to model through opening up a present and that is why I get pointing at the box, the box, opening the present. I thought you were trying to eat your dinner. So, I did not... But as they were picking up on the words, I started to feel quite empowered. This is interesting, so when they started to understand you, you felt empowered. Does that mean before they started to understand what you were saying, that you were feeling a little bit of disempowerment? Yeah. Most definitely. Most definitely. Well then this is a huge thing for somebody who is struggling to communicate in a way that other people can understand, is not it? We do not often think about the fact that if somebody cannot communicate with everyone else, they might feel a complete loss of control. A complete lack of empowerment. It is a huge problem for people living with dementia this, huge issue. And this links into things around mental health, as well. If you have got someone who feels no purpose, no empowerment, it would be really easy to feel a little bit worthless as a result of that. And this is a huge, huge thing with people living with dementia, so. I love that. Fantastic. And then obviously Kate down the bottom there. Can I just ask, is mine actually a song because I cannot make sense of it all. Yours is a song, as well... I am guessing you did not realise that was a song then. No. You did not. So, you could not rely on a tune... No. Like Rach. And really interesting about the tunes because with Rach, was one in particular. You guys picked up on the tune. And Kate, you were filling in the words as you went. So we have got another way of communicating straight away, their tone picked up on tone and pitch and put words. You could not fall back on that, you were basically just trying to use speech. Yeah. Which is very hard for you and when you have got that mouth piece in. How were you feeling when you were trying to communicate that to the guys? Really frustrated. Really frustrated. Really, really frustrated. Yeah, I... Because I cannot make sense of it myself and in my head, I am trying to process what that actually means. So I did not actually understand what I was saying and trying to pronounce it at the same time was... Yeah. So, not being able to understand what you were trying to say. Would you say that you felt a little bit like you were the one with the problem there? Yeah. That you were the one not doing it right? Yeah. Which... That is a horrible thing to feel. Horrible. I think we could all say with Kate, that she did not feel comfortable. With the communication, if you are trying to communicate with someone and they cannot understand you, it would be really easy for people to feel quite self conscious about that and think I am the one with the problem. When you are not the one with the problem there, we are the ones with the problem because we could not understand what you were trying to communicate. You were communicating perfectly well with the barrier that you have in place. Now, this is something that I did not really tend to think about when I was supporting people living with dementia and I remember the very, very first place I ever worked, there was a lady in there and she had a stroke and she had a speech impediment as a result of that stroke. And I was very conscious when I was communicating with her, that I felt like I was doing something wrong. I felt like I was an inadequate. I could not understand what she was trying to communicate to me. It made me very, very, very self conscious. I never thought for a second that she might be feeling that, as well. And this is a huge thing we need to pick up on and recognise, because if we cannot try and find another way to communicate with you, or try and understand you better and interpret what you are trying to communicate we might end up with Kate thinking like, "She's inadequate. There is something wrong with her." Which is completely not the case. The case is that there is something wrong with these, is not there? Yes. Because they could not understand you. So, we mentioned about the tune. We picked up someone that Rach was trying to communicate something through a tune. Dennis, you were using your gestures. Just straight away there, we are picking up in all these other ways that people might communicate. How were you guys letting each other know when your colleagues have got it right? Because obviously you could not say, "Yes, that is correct." How are you letting each other know when they have you got it right? Sort of... Through body language. Yeah. Nodding this. Putting thumbs up. Body... I saw a little bit of relaxation as soon as they guessed it right. "Finally." Finally. "Something I can work with." Yeah. There was some noises going on at some point, I cannot remember who it was, but.. Someone guessed it right, I heard a... Sort of a happy groan, a happy noise coming out. We have sort of communicate without speaking. We naturally fall back on that. And this is what happens where a lot of people who are living with aphasia and maybe finding it difficult to communicate verbally. I've had people communicate on other sessions that I have run when someone has got it right, they have just spat the mouth piece out and started punching the air. That is a very clear communication you have got it right. What did you guys have written on your cards? So, let us... What did Kate have written her card there? I am sure this is not even a song. "Rolling, rolling, rolling. Keep those doggies rolling. Rolling, rolling, rolling. Rawhide." Anyone recognise? Yeah. Yeah. Is that a song? Yeah. That is a song. Yeah. So if you had that card and you were gonna communicate using a tune, can you give us an example of how that would work? Go on, Rach, you know this one. What is the song? So with... Rawhide. Humming it or singing it? How would you hum that one? I love my job. I get people to do all sorts of silly things, all sorts of silly things. You guessed Dennis's and Rachel's cards. So Kate and Rach, what was written on Dennis's card there? Happy birthday to you. Birthday... Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear friend. Yes. Oh. Very good. Very good. What is written on Rachel's card? Incy wincy spider. Incy wincy spider. They have forgotten whatever you said. They have forgotten what you said. All that effort you put into communicating and they forget. How is that making you feel? I tried really hard with that, guys. It is climbed up the waterspout, down came the rain and washed the spider out. See, I was listening. I was listening. These horrible people over here paid no attention. It is really easy when someone has put all that effort in to communicating with you. You have got to a place where, "Yes, I know what it is they are trying to communicate." It is really easy five minutes later to forget what has been communicated to you. And it is a natural thing. We all live busy lives. You might have your husband communicating something to you and then the door goes, phone goes off and you are sorting dinner out at the same time and the kids need something. It is really easy for that to slip out of your mind. The problem is that person has gone to through all the effort to communicate with you and you can no longer remember what it is they have got to say. And if that person picks up that you have forgotten, that might make them feel, you do not care. You did not try it. If they feel like that, it is very easy for them to slip into the, "Why bother?" "Why would I bother putting in this effort if you cannot remember or act upon what it is I have had to communicate?" And this is slipping into people just giving up, and you see it all the time with people living with dementia. It might be that they stopped trying to communicate, because it is difficult and people are not taking any attention, are not paying any attention to them. That could then turn into not wanting to mobilise, not wanting to wash, not wanting to eat, not wanting to drink. Apathy is a huge, huge thing we see with people living with dementia, and the big root cause of that could potentially be because there is massive communication barriers in place for with people. So let us say Rach has just sung you guys "Incy Wincy Spider". How would you make sure that in two hours time you could remember that Rachel sung "Incy Wincy Spider" to you? Record it. Record it. So you could record it. You could jot it down. If we jot things down, we are not gonna forget about them. Now, my background is in care, and in care, we write everything down that happens. When we are at home, I do not know about you guys, but I never tended to write bits down on a bit of paper that have been said to me. And then I forget about it, and then I get in trouble later on for forgetting about it. If I am living with someone who is living with dementia, I want to avoid causing extra confusion and stress and hassle for them. So jotting things down, really simple, takes two seconds, but then later on, we are going to remember exactly what it is that person has had to say. Fantastic, I really enjoyed watching that. Did you all enjoy doing it? Yeah. Yes. Fantastic. Are you ready for another one? Yeah. Absolutely. Brilliant stuff.
Experiential Training for Care Staff: Impairing Ability to Speak
Overview of the Activity
Simulating communication challenges for care staff.
This video focuses on experiential training where care staff participate in activities designed to impair their ability to speak effectively.
