Should You Engage in Therapeutic Lying?
Home Health Care in Fairfax VA: What is Therapeutic Lying?
Dementia is a cruel disease that chips away at the memories of an elderly person. Because there are gaps in their memory, they often get confused about their reality and try to fill in the blanks with ideas or memories that are not true. Family caregivers that provide elderly care to loved -ones with dementia are often put into the position of either presenting the truth or going along with an alternate reality. The practice of telling fibs to those with dementia, for their own good, is known as therapeutic lying.
Most caregivers are uncomfortable about lying at all, especially to their elderly relatives with dementia. After all, true relationships are built on trust and love. Deceiving someone is not an act of respect and it can make family caregivers feel very guilty as they provide elderly care. However, balancing respect and honesty with realistic care and consideration of the elderly person’s situation is possible to obtain.
How Therapeutic Lying May Help Seniors
Most medical professionals, therapists, and family caregivers would never dream of lying to an elderly person. No matter how painful the truth, people deserve to hear it and can then process it normally. However, with dementia, the normal processing simply can’t happen, so the elderly person hears the truth as new over and over again. They are focused on scenarios that are completely real to them and logic or evidence simply cannot change their minds. Examples include believing someone is still alive who is not, that they live somewhere else, they have to get to work, someone is stealing from them, or it is a different year than the present time.
When confronted with the truth of these or any number of realities, elderly people can get agitated, confused, sad, angry, frightened and upset. This would be a normal reaction on hearing bad news for the first time, but then people would get on with life. For those with dementia, they hear the news for the first time over and over, causing recurring pain and stress. Their mind is not capable of holding onto the information.
Many professionals feel that the constant exposure to bad news, mental distress, and physical pain is cruel and detrimental to an elderly person’s health. They feel that it is better to go along with the senior’s reality than to confront them with the painful truth. Some family caregivers feel that making loved-ones feel safe and loved is more important than reacquainting them with a timeline that they simply cannot keep up with.
What Experts Say About Therapeutic Lying
Medical experts feel that family caregivers can satisfy both sides of the struggle of therapeutic lying by setting guidelines for themselves. Instead of outright lying just to avoid confrontation, family caregivers should validate the elderly person’s feelings and redirect them to something soothing, if possible. For example, when a senior demands to go to work now, the caregiver says they understand how anxious they must feel and that they’ll leave after lunch. Then they get lunch and go for a nice walk. Dementia patients will usually be redirected easily and forget about what was upsetting them.
When it comes to therapeutic lying, family caregivers must look at the issue from all sides and make the determination, based on their ideals and the unique needs of their elderly loved-one with dementia.
Are you or a loved-one considering home health care in Fairfax, VA? Please call the caring staff at Medical Professionals On Call today.
Contact: 703-273-8818
Medical Professionals On Call has such a caring, professional staff who are available to step in with whatever level of care necessary for loved ones and to relieve you of that stress.
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