Rethinking Communication guide to advanced dementia

Family members may not be able to sit down with their loved one when they come to visit. Other residents may become disturbed by the constant movement. The individual may appear to be continually ill at ease, seeming to search endlessly for something, some place or someone who is not there. Individuals with advanced dementia can appear to be so far removed from us that it seems like they are living in their own world. They may be completely silent, apparently unresponsive to our attempts to communicate. Or they may talk a lot, but not in a way that is understandable to us. They may produce noises that sound like words but aren’t. They may repeat real words, even speaking in sentences, but these don’t make any sense. They are also likely to experience extreme difficulties in understanding what is said to them. As speech becomes less and less useful as a means of making contact, we can easily give up because our attempts to engage are so unsuccessful.