Rethinking Communication guide to advanced dementia

It is fascinating to realise that sharing moments of attention with someone else is physiological. It is significant for our brain and our body, impacting on us mentally, emotionally and physically. The ability to share attention is so fundamental that scientists have given it a formal term: ‘intersubjectivity’ – the capacity for attention (subjectivity) to be shared between two people (inter). 4 Human brains need to have intersubjective experiences in order to thrive. We literally have a physiological drive to share moments with other human beings. Nelson Mandela put that same idea this way: 4 C Trevarthen & K J Aitken (2001) Infant intersubjectivity: Research, theory, and clinical applications. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 42, 3-48 “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to a man in his own language, that goes to his heart.”