Rethinking Communication guide to advanced dementia

in new ways, that it may indeed be true that we treat people with advanced dementia differently than we treat others who do not have verbal skills. Alienation of those with advanced dementia is commonplace in our society. Once speech is gone, even a medical diagnosis that explains that loss does not improve the chances of their communicative bids being noticed by caregivers. As they lose control over their mobility and the power to perform basic activities of living, then life can become endless hours spent alone in a bedroom. Martin Seligman’s theory of learned helplessness, developed in the 1970s, can be helpful in assisting us to think about the consequences of exclusion. Learned helplessness is the emotional state experienced when we perceive a lack of control over our situation or environment. It comes from research into depression, in which negative perceptions of a person’s competence combines with their own pessimistic self-perception. As a result, the individual becomes resigned to this negative view and comes to regard their supposed