Life Story Work with People with Dementia by Polly Kaiser Ruth Eley

Author:Polly Kaiser, Ruth Eley [Polly Kaiser, Ruth Eley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857009142
Goodreads: 29621208
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Published: 2016-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

Reconnecting as a couple

Listening and conversing are key components of life story work as they are the basis of developing good relationships that are fundamental to delivering high quality, person-centred care. As well as having positive implications for relationships between staff and people with dementia and their carers, this project suggests that this is an identified benefit for the relationships between the person with dementia and their spouse. This view is supported in literature, where it was found that using a life story approach with couples improves their communication and strengthens their identity as a couple (Scherrer et al. 2014).

Findings from our interviews suggest that relationships significantly improved during the process of undertaking life story work. One gentleman with dementia stated:

Me and my wife have got together to do this – it’s brought us back together.

This view was further supported by comments from carers such as:

It’s helped me communicate with my wife again.

The ability to communicate as a couple following a diagnosis of dementia is critical to the care relationship and is significant in terms of carer stress and burden experienced (Haight et al. 2003). Molyneux et al. (2011, cited in Scherrer et al. 2014) suggest that following a diagnosis of dementia, couples need to do a great deal of ‘identity work’ to maintain their relationship. They suggest that life story work is a means for couples to explore their past together and reaffirm their strengths so they can move forward and deal with challenges in the future. In support of this, one carer stated:

We have shared our memories and now we can plan for the future. We have accepted the future will be different but we still have one.

A number of the benefits to family carers overlap with those to the person with dementia – for example, reconnecting as a couple. Comments from carers suggested that prior to involvement in life story work they felt they had lost the person they knew, but that following it they had a renewed sense of togetherness:

We are telling her story together, it’s our story. It is very emotional sometimes but it is making us stronger.

Clarke et al. (2003) suggested caution with life story work as it can evoke painful memories. However, interviews with the participants in this project suggest that this does not need to be a bar to undertaking life story work, as even painful memories can lead to positive outcomes. Jane McKeown and colleagues explore this further in Chapter 16.

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