November 23, 2023 • 23 mins
Gerontologist, professor, and advocate Dr. Chris Johnson joins Dana for a thoughtful conversation about his acclaimed research into Alzheimer’s disease as a “trip back in time.” Dr. Johnson shares learning to conceptualize Alzheimer’s disease can help care partners better understand and cope with erratic cognitive changes. Dana and Dr. Johnson also discuss the importance of meeting a patient at the age they feel and learning to validate their experiences as they travel back in time.
For more information about this concept, contact Chris Johnson, PhD at cjj38@txstate.edu. Do you have a question for Dana? Email her directly at thememorywhisperer@gmail.com or visit www.thememorywhisperer.com for additional resources.
The Memory Whisperer is written and produced by Dana Territo, with help from editor Blake Langlinais. Additional production support from Ryan Martz and Julia Weaver. Special Thanks to Michael Andrews, a person with dementia, and Innovations in Dementia, CIC for our theme music. Logo graphics by Xdesign.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
It started with Peggy, someone with Alzheimer's who never knew
my name and who I companion at her nursing home
residence for twenty two years. Her influence in my life
and the values I received from growing up with grandparents
living in our home are the guiding forces and my
love and advocacy for the Alzheimer's population. I am a
(00:27):
newspaper columnist for The Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and
the author of What My Grandchildren Taught Me About Alzheimer's Disease.
And now I'm launching a podcast. Hi, you're listening to
Dana Tita the Memory Whisper. Join me in these podcasts
as we engage in thoughtful conversations about Alzheimer's disease and
(00:49):
other dementias.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Hi, this is.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Dana Tarita, the Memory Whisper, and with us today we
have doctor Chris Johnson, who is the clinical Professor of
Sociology at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, my
home state. Doctor Johnson came to Texas State University from
Scotland's Stirling University's famous Irish Murdoch's Dementia Center. He was
(01:16):
the director of an award winning gerontology program at the
University of Louisiana for over twenty five years. His mission
was to develop the first Dementia and Aging Studies master
degree program in America at Texas State University, which he
succeeded in doing. He has consulted in designed for over
one hundred memory care units and has conducted staff training
(01:38):
in these homes. In his dementia advocacy, he's an author
and educator on human rights and empowerment for persons with
cognitive disabilities and elders. He targets the topics of social
models of dementia care partnerships, technology, aging and memory care
partners and he advocates for dementia's citizenship. He came to
(02:00):
Texas State University to develop a thirty three hour online
MSDA which I mentioned earlier, offering seven courses in dementia studies.
Doctor Johnson served on the National Alzheimer's Disease and Related
Disordered Nursing Home and Adult day Care boards. He is
speaking skills or evidenced by being the regional winner of
Toastmasters International for Texas and Louisiana. And this I can
(02:24):
cut test to because I've attended one of his conferences,
and they are wonderful. He teaches online dimension aging classes
while working with his wife, doctor Roxanne Johnson, in an
aging consultant business. They designed dementia neighborhoods and train long
term care and home health care staffs and consult on
quality care issues. He has more than sixty three publications,
(02:45):
one hundred and twenty eight citations, and a new book
coming out named Dementia Revisited, which doctor Johnson co authored
with doctor Sudershan. He has been awarded the Favorite Professor Award,
an honor recipient by the Alfred H. Null Chapter of
the Alpha Kai National College Honor Society, among many other honors.
(03:05):
I'm so pleased to welcome doctor Chris Johnson here today
as he talks about the world of Alzheimer's and dementia,
and especially his research on Alzheimer's disease A trip back
in time. So happy to have doctor Chris Johnson.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
In the April March two thousand issue of American Journal
of Alzheimer's Disease, you, doctor Chris Johnson, and your wife,
doctor Roxanne Johnson published the paper Alzheimer's Disease as a
Trip Back in time, y'all discuss that a person with
dementia can turn back the clock in their mind with
their state of memory regressing to that of their forties, fifties,
(03:43):
and so on, until they're in the mind that they
are back like children. And what makes this model so
unique is that the regression of memory is not a
straight line moving backwards and time only, but it contains
loops to mean your loved one with dementia can travel
back and forth in time. So for our listeners, doctor Johnson,
(04:04):
can you kind of describe the spiral image because they
can't see it, of course they're listening on the radio,
but can you kind of describe this spiral image in
the loops?
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Yes, And by the way, we don't call it regression anymore.
We've moved toward saying calling it time travel the types
of time travel that they go through. So what happens
with the loops is they our time travel model says
that when you get Alzheimer's disease, you basically are at
(04:34):
a certain age and then what happens is is that
you go through a downward spiral going back and forth
through time. So one day you recognize your grandchildren, next
day you don't. Then you do in increments of decades,
so you know eighty, say suppose the person's eighty. They
(04:54):
go from eighty to seventy seventy, back to eighty, then
sixty to seventy seventy back to sixty. It's a downward spiral,
but it's back and forth through time, so it's not
neatly in stages. But we use stage models to describe
markers for where they are in that time travel. But
our model accompanies the stage model so that they understand
(05:16):
you're not neatly in the stage. It's fluid and you're
going back and forth through time, and so families, it's
important for them to understand how this works. I can
use several examples. When they time travel back to age forty,
they're only going to recognize the people they knew from
forty backward. They're not going to recognize people from forty forward.
(05:40):
So the second thing that happens is you have they
time travel further and then they go back to age
twenty and imagine they've time traveled in their head back
to age twenty in this downward spiral, and you get
an eighty year old man coming in saying I'm your husband.
(06:01):
When your head, you're twenty, you're not even married, and
then someone comes in and says it's your son or
it's your daughter, but you're you're at age twenty. In
your head, you look in a mirror and see an
eighty year old face and you say, well, who is
that person? What are you doing in my bathroom? Exactly?
(06:23):
And so time travel helps people understand that you know,
they're in different time frame and you, as a caregiver
we call it care partner, needs to join that person
in that time travel. And what's beautiful now is that
you know, everyone's sort of getting this, and we're seeing
(06:45):
technology that's matching our time travel model with apps that
you know are used now to in the UK, they've
done this. They love our time travel model. About the
Alzheimer's society there used it back in the year two thousand.
The model's been updated now in twenty seventeen article that
(07:06):
my wife and I published along with the grad student that.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Was in behavioral science, wasn't it now?
Speaker 4 (07:10):
There was in behavioral science and it had to do
with end stage Alzheimer's. But it's still it uses the
same model. It just changes the nomenclature changes. The wording
where we're not looking at Alzheimer's number one is a stereotype,
(07:30):
not everybody has it. And then the second thing is
we're not looking at it as tragedy. We're seeing it
as a cognitive disability where the person has abilities and
it's up to us to join them in this time
travel so that we can optimize their abilities. And I
had to do this with my mother, who had basket dementia,
(07:52):
but she also time travels with basketers, just these little
stare steps, and she had no clue who I was.
But we used reminiscence book in which she could see
her sisters in the farm, and she actually had a
phasia at the time we used it, but she started
talking again, you know, at least in brief sentences. Mom
(08:16):
my sister, pointed to these pictures because she had time
traveled back to the early days on the farm where
my mom was raised on a farm. Right. I'm in Iowa,
so it's a farm.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Right, right. So this is the adult development in reverse
from Barry Weisberg. It's a more cognitive, emotional, social, physical
functional model, right.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Yeah. Absolutely, And there are some paradoxes with it too.
I mean it uses Barrie's. What Barry likes about our
model is that we go further to explain what he
did because it isn't neatly in stages as his model suggests.
It's actually fluid and it moves back and forth through time.
(09:00):
The person, even when they're bedridden and they have total
effecion at the end with advanced Alzheimer's, at the end
of their life, there are the brief moments of lucidity
that shoot them right back up to the present where
they'll say, data, you have a new hairdo you know?
And then it's back to total aphasia with where they're
(09:23):
totally non verbal and babbling because they're back at that
stage that you know, time travel has taken them to.
And so time travel is essential ingredient for caregivers to understand,
and our care partners is our new wording ghosts to understand.
(09:45):
You know what a person with Alzheimer's, which accounts for
over half of all dementia, you know what they actually
go through.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So it helps caregivers understand that there can be variation
and their loved ones perspective of time.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yes, uh, they're going to expect consistency, you know. So
the caregiver does because they don't understand how Alzheimer's works.
So education helps in this direction. Uh, they don't get why,
you know, if they recognize the grandchildren one day, the
next day they don't, so they're expect they expect them
(10:34):
to do that, but then they you know, what the
attention needs to do is to look at what the
deficits are and when reality orientation isn't going to help,
and when validation helps. Right, Yeah, Naomi File of course
came up with validation. There, we validate them. But what
(10:56):
Naomi didn't say is that you use the validation to
matter up with the time travel. And you know, we
used to call, by the way, validation therapy. When I
first started out, it was called modified reality orientation.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Right, reality orientation.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Yes, you came up with that buzzword validation and made
a fortune on it, but it's you know, hats off
to Naiomi, I mean she you know, but it is
modified reality orientation because you know, part of their reality
is their life history, and understanding their life history is
(11:32):
so essential to professional caregivers. They don't get it.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Well, like how long would that person stay in that
particular maybe age forty or fifty Is there a marker
that can associate with that?
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Yeah, you use the markers from Reesburg's. The deficits are
outlined in Reesburg's seven stages. Once they have those deficits,
they're not likely to stay in the stages the earlier
you know, the later stages later meeting age seventy and eighty.
But also realize that it's a fluid process and that
(12:10):
they may have brief moments elucidity where they say, how
do they recognize me? Now maybe they don't have Alzheimer's. Well,
it's those brief moments elucidity where those you know, neurons
kick in and they're able to have this brief moment
of recognition. But then they go back into the time
(12:33):
frame they were and traveling downward in the spiral toward
the womb. And the womb is the final stage of Alzheimer's,
where they are they have the tightening and stiffening of joints,
and they're bedridden, and of course they have total aphasia.
(12:57):
But you know, even at that stage or that that time,
there's many activities that we can do.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I think you talked about incorporating the five senses during
that time, right.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Yes, yes, absolutely, and so you know it's because they want.
You know, if you look at a child, for example,
a baby, right, they are the healthiest person on earth
emotional because their emotions are totally in sync with their behavior.
(13:33):
They're not dishonest at all. A baby's totally honest. So
if they're unhappy in any kind of way, they're going
to voice it. Sure, and then unfortunately they run into
us and we teach them how to hide their feelings.
You know, stop crying, grow up, be a big boy.
Sure is the message. Stop feeling when you when you
(13:55):
time travel back to earliest stages in your life with Alzheimer's,
you actually get more in touch with your emotions, and
that makes caregivers, you know, uncomfortable. They cry when they're sad,
they may laugh a lot on certain things, who knows,
but they're honest with their emotions. They don't hide emotions,
(14:19):
and that can make people uncomfortable that aren't properly educated
and understand.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
So that's the that's would you say, is the authenticity
of the person coming out?
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's important to be authentic,
and you know, if we're growing in a spiritual way
as we get older, we learn how to become more authentic,
more honest. And the paradox with Alzheimer's is, although they
(14:50):
may lose their mind as some people call it, when
they go through this disability, they they actually become more
in touch, more authentic with their feelings. Now, of course
they have you know, these other types of time travel,
which is cognitive cognitive time travel, and you know all
(15:11):
these what we used to call regression now are just
forms of time travel.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I like that your model reveals a shift in the
way a person experiences the world. You say that the
person with Alzheimer's is not suffering from an awful disease,
but just living life differently.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Yeah, you know, I don't take credit for that. I
give Alan Power credit for that. He actually launched our
program at Texas State, America's first master's degree in dementia
studies at Texas State, where Lynnon Johnson went to school,
(15:58):
by the way, LBJ. But you know, yeah, you know,
but regardless, you know, he he this is his definition
and I feel very comfortable with it. I think it's
a good way to look at it because we have
to see this as a disability with strengths, with abilities
(16:22):
and start finding ways to join them in this time travel.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
In your time travels, the loops they get narrow at
the end stage.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
It just means that there's less variation in you know,
at the beginning, you get these increments of decade decade
increments and shifts of you know, time travel, you know,
seventy eighty back to seventy, back to eighty, and then
you get down to you know, the teen years, and
(16:56):
they're smaller. So one day they're ten, the next day
they're fifteen. Then they're five, they're ten, you know, they're five,
they're eight. It's smaller. This is inexact, it's not totally exact,
but it's what's called a model. It's a paradigm to
help people understand that there's less variation in those once
(17:21):
they time travel back to their early years of childhood
in their head. But the loops are all connected, so
they still can have those brief moments of lucidity that
shoot them back up to the present. And I got
contacted by a person named Darren Evans in the UK
(17:42):
who's developed an app that it's based on time travel.
He says, your theory matches us perfectly. And what family
care givers do is they feed their caregiver information into
the app, informiationion about the person with Alzheimer's. For example,
(18:03):
you feed you know, favorite early foods, brothers, sisters, pictures,
music that relate back to early the earlier years. So
all of that information is in the app that matches up.
So when they time travel back to the early years,
and you realize that there were songs back in say
(18:25):
the nineteen fifties that they listened to. Once they're time
traveled to back age, you know, eight, you put on
blue suede shoes and they basically know what you're you know,
they it's instant identification and validation. And so you're then
(18:46):
practicing some of Naomi files. You know, she puts the
earphones on a person with dementia and plays those early songs. Well,
this is what time travel is doing right right, And
you then become their best friend once you accommodate their
needs with the time travel matchup. Proper pictures, proper music,
(19:09):
proper faces. I didn't have fixed pictures of the five
boys my mother raised, she had bascular dementia. I have
pictures of her sisters and her parents and the farm.
She hated the farm, but she wanted to get off
the farm, right. But you know, I have pictures of
(19:30):
a piano that was her escape as playing the piano.
But you know, the farm did bring back some good
memories because it was it was connected to her family.
Not all reminiscence as positive, by the way, so you've
got to be careful about picture selection. It may be
horrors back in the you know, those early years for
(19:53):
people that have been abused in certain family systems. So
understanding the person, understanding their life history essential to time travel.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
And that helps with behaviors, behavior expressions.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Absolutely, there are there are family members in their time
travel that they don't like that are not going to
bring back positive memories, and there are ones they absolutely love.
And there are other personages that if you have the pictures,
(20:27):
it could bring back very good memories. If they had
picture of my you know, kindergarten teacher, Miss Valentine, they
had her picture, I'd light up because she.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Was she was I loved her, a vivid memory.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
It's a vivid memory. She was so sweet to me.
And so you know, uh, those are people, uh you
know that that in you know, if I were to
have Alzheimer's, I have time travel, they're in introduced to me,
that would be instant identification and instant joy and happiness.
(21:06):
You want to bring joy to their life, you have
to match up with their time travel, right, and that
involves knowledge of a life history, gathering facts, and you're
in a professional caregiving situation, has to find a family
member that knows these facts and is able to feed
(21:27):
it into the app or feed it into their whatever
type of data set they have on the person. And
then have enough help and nurse ades that are properly
trained in dementia care and understand time travel. If they
not only have proper queuing by the door, they have
proper types of activities instead of warehousing activities, they have
(21:52):
person centered activities. They have person centered music, person centered food.
You know it's a huge obligation.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Sure, yes, Thank you so much for your time today.
Alzheimer's is a trip back in time was the name
of the article by doctor Chris Johnson and his wife,
doctor Roxanne Johnson. I wish her the best and thank
you so much for visiting with us today, doctor Johnson,
and thank you so much for what you've done and
an impact you've had on the dementia population.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Thank you, Dana and people can feel free to contact
me in Texas State if they have any questions.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Well that's it for us today, Thank you for listening.
The Memory whisper is a production of iHeartRadio and the
Seneca Women Podcast Network. It's produced by Me, Dana Turedo,
and honor of Peggy and all those affected by Alzheimer's disease.
I offer a special thanks to my audio editor, Blake Longlane,
and to Michael Andrews, a person with dementia, who gave
(23:03):
me permission to use his beautiful flute music for this podcast.
For more information or to reach me directly, head on
over to my website, the Memory Whisperer dot com. And
for those struggling with a diagnosis, remember my motto, the
more you know, the better it'll go. Blessings,
It started with Peggy, someone with Alzheimer's who never knew
my name and who I companion at her nursing home
residence for twenty two years. Her influence in my life
and the values I received from growing up with grandparents
living in our home are the guiding forces and my
love and advocacy for the Alzheimer's population. I am a
(00:27):
newspaper columnist for The Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and
the author of What My Grandchildren Taught Me About Alzheimer's Disease.
And now I'm launching a podcast. Hi, you're listening to
Dana Tita the Memory Whisper. Join me in these podcasts
as we engage in thoughtful conversations about Alzheimer's disease and
(00:49):
other dementias.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Hi, this is.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Dana Tarita, the Memory Whisper, and with us today we
have doctor Chris Johnson, who is the clinical Professor of
Sociology at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, my
home state. Doctor Johnson came to Texas State University from
Scotland's Stirling University's famous Irish Murdoch's Dementia Center. He was
(01:16):
the director of an award winning gerontology program at the
University of Louisiana for over twenty five years. His mission
was to develop the first Dementia and Aging Studies master
degree program in America at Texas State University, which he
succeeded in doing. He has consulted in designed for over
one hundred memory care units and has conducted staff training
(01:38):
in these homes. In his dementia advocacy, he's an author
and educator on human rights and empowerment for persons with
cognitive disabilities and elders. He targets the topics of social
models of dementia care partnerships, technology, aging and memory care
partners and he advocates for dementia's citizenship. He came to
(02:00):
Texas State University to develop a thirty three hour online
MSDA which I mentioned earlier, offering seven courses in dementia studies.
Doctor Johnson served on the National Alzheimer's Disease and Related
Disordered Nursing Home and Adult day Care boards. He is
speaking skills or evidenced by being the regional winner of
Toastmasters International for Texas and Louisiana. And this I can
(02:24):
cut test to because I've attended one of his conferences,
and they are wonderful. He teaches online dimension aging classes
while working with his wife, doctor Roxanne Johnson, in an
aging consultant business. They designed dementia neighborhoods and train long
term care and home health care staffs and consult on
quality care issues. He has more than sixty three publications,
(02:45):
one hundred and twenty eight citations, and a new book
coming out named Dementia Revisited, which doctor Johnson co authored
with doctor Sudershan. He has been awarded the Favorite Professor Award,
an honor recipient by the Alfred H. Null Chapter of
the Alpha Kai National College Honor Society, among many other honors.
(03:05):
I'm so pleased to welcome doctor Chris Johnson here today
as he talks about the world of Alzheimer's and dementia,
and especially his research on Alzheimer's disease A trip back
in time. So happy to have doctor Chris Johnson.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
In the April March two thousand issue of American Journal
of Alzheimer's Disease, you, doctor Chris Johnson, and your wife,
doctor Roxanne Johnson published the paper Alzheimer's Disease as a
Trip Back in time, y'all discuss that a person with
dementia can turn back the clock in their mind with
their state of memory regressing to that of their forties, fifties,
(03:43):
and so on, until they're in the mind that they
are back like children. And what makes this model so
unique is that the regression of memory is not a
straight line moving backwards and time only, but it contains
loops to mean your loved one with dementia can travel
back and forth in time. So for our listeners, doctor Johnson,
(04:04):
can you kind of describe the spiral image because they
can't see it, of course they're listening on the radio,
but can you kind of describe this spiral image in
the loops?
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Yes, And by the way, we don't call it regression anymore.
We've moved toward saying calling it time travel the types
of time travel that they go through. So what happens
with the loops is they our time travel model says
that when you get Alzheimer's disease, you basically are at
(04:34):
a certain age and then what happens is is that
you go through a downward spiral going back and forth
through time. So one day you recognize your grandchildren, next
day you don't. Then you do in increments of decades,
so you know eighty, say suppose the person's eighty. They
(04:54):
go from eighty to seventy seventy, back to eighty, then
sixty to seventy seventy back to sixty. It's a downward spiral,
but it's back and forth through time, so it's not
neatly in stages. But we use stage models to describe
markers for where they are in that time travel. But
our model accompanies the stage model so that they understand
(05:16):
you're not neatly in the stage. It's fluid and you're
going back and forth through time, and so families, it's
important for them to understand how this works. I can
use several examples. When they time travel back to age forty,
they're only going to recognize the people they knew from
forty backward. They're not going to recognize people from forty forward.
(05:40):
So the second thing that happens is you have they
time travel further and then they go back to age
twenty and imagine they've time traveled in their head back
to age twenty in this downward spiral, and you get
an eighty year old man coming in saying I'm your husband.
(06:01):
When your head, you're twenty, you're not even married, and
then someone comes in and says it's your son or
it's your daughter, but you're you're at age twenty. In
your head, you look in a mirror and see an
eighty year old face and you say, well, who is
that person? What are you doing in my bathroom? Exactly?
(06:23):
And so time travel helps people understand that you know,
they're in different time frame and you, as a caregiver
we call it care partner, needs to join that person
in that time travel. And what's beautiful now is that
you know, everyone's sort of getting this, and we're seeing
(06:45):
technology that's matching our time travel model with apps that
you know are used now to in the UK, they've
done this. They love our time travel model. About the
Alzheimer's society there used it back in the year two thousand.
The model's been updated now in twenty seventeen article that
(07:06):
my wife and I published along with the grad student that.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Was in behavioral science, wasn't it now?
Speaker 4 (07:10):
There was in behavioral science and it had to do
with end stage Alzheimer's. But it's still it uses the
same model. It just changes the nomenclature changes. The wording
where we're not looking at Alzheimer's number one is a stereotype,
(07:30):
not everybody has it. And then the second thing is
we're not looking at it as tragedy. We're seeing it
as a cognitive disability where the person has abilities and
it's up to us to join them in this time
travel so that we can optimize their abilities. And I
had to do this with my mother, who had basket dementia,
(07:52):
but she also time travels with basketers, just these little
stare steps, and she had no clue who I was.
But we used reminiscence book in which she could see
her sisters in the farm, and she actually had a
phasia at the time we used it, but she started
talking again, you know, at least in brief sentences. Mom
(08:16):
my sister, pointed to these pictures because she had time
traveled back to the early days on the farm where
my mom was raised on a farm. Right. I'm in Iowa,
so it's a farm.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Right, right. So this is the adult development in reverse
from Barry Weisberg. It's a more cognitive, emotional, social, physical
functional model, right.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Yeah. Absolutely, And there are some paradoxes with it too.
I mean it uses Barrie's. What Barry likes about our
model is that we go further to explain what he
did because it isn't neatly in stages as his model suggests.
It's actually fluid and it moves back and forth through time.
(09:00):
The person, even when they're bedridden and they have total
effecion at the end with advanced Alzheimer's, at the end
of their life, there are the brief moments of lucidity
that shoot them right back up to the present where
they'll say, data, you have a new hairdo you know?
And then it's back to total aphasia with where they're
(09:23):
totally non verbal and babbling because they're back at that
stage that you know, time travel has taken them to.
And so time travel is essential ingredient for caregivers to understand,
and our care partners is our new wording ghosts to understand.
(09:45):
You know what a person with Alzheimer's, which accounts for
over half of all dementia, you know what they actually
go through.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So it helps caregivers understand that there can be variation
and their loved ones perspective of time.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yes, uh, they're going to expect consistency, you know. So
the caregiver does because they don't understand how Alzheimer's works.
So education helps in this direction. Uh, they don't get why,
you know, if they recognize the grandchildren one day, the
next day they don't, so they're expect they expect them
(10:34):
to do that, but then they you know, what the
attention needs to do is to look at what the
deficits are and when reality orientation isn't going to help,
and when validation helps. Right, Yeah, Naomi File of course
came up with validation. There, we validate them. But what
(10:56):
Naomi didn't say is that you use the validation to
matter up with the time travel. And you know, we
used to call, by the way, validation therapy. When I
first started out, it was called modified reality orientation.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Right, reality orientation.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Yes, you came up with that buzzword validation and made
a fortune on it, but it's you know, hats off
to Naiomi, I mean she you know, but it is
modified reality orientation because you know, part of their reality
is their life history, and understanding their life history is
(11:32):
so essential to professional caregivers. They don't get it.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Well, like how long would that person stay in that
particular maybe age forty or fifty Is there a marker
that can associate with that?
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Yeah, you use the markers from Reesburg's. The deficits are
outlined in Reesburg's seven stages. Once they have those deficits,
they're not likely to stay in the stages the earlier
you know, the later stages later meeting age seventy and eighty.
But also realize that it's a fluid process and that
(12:10):
they may have brief moments elucidity where they say, how
do they recognize me? Now maybe they don't have Alzheimer's. Well,
it's those brief moments elucidity where those you know, neurons
kick in and they're able to have this brief moment
of recognition. But then they go back into the time
(12:33):
frame they were and traveling downward in the spiral toward
the womb. And the womb is the final stage of Alzheimer's,
where they are they have the tightening and stiffening of joints,
and they're bedridden, and of course they have total aphasia.
(12:57):
But you know, even at that stage or that that time,
there's many activities that we can do.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I think you talked about incorporating the five senses during
that time, right.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Yes, yes, absolutely, and so you know it's because they want.
You know, if you look at a child, for example,
a baby, right, they are the healthiest person on earth
emotional because their emotions are totally in sync with their behavior.
(13:33):
They're not dishonest at all. A baby's totally honest. So
if they're unhappy in any kind of way, they're going
to voice it. Sure, and then unfortunately they run into
us and we teach them how to hide their feelings.
You know, stop crying, grow up, be a big boy.
Sure is the message. Stop feeling when you when you
(13:55):
time travel back to earliest stages in your life with Alzheimer's,
you actually get more in touch with your emotions, and
that makes caregivers, you know, uncomfortable. They cry when they're sad,
they may laugh a lot on certain things, who knows,
but they're honest with their emotions. They don't hide emotions,
(14:19):
and that can make people uncomfortable that aren't properly educated
and understand.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
So that's the that's would you say, is the authenticity
of the person coming out?
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's important to be authentic,
and you know, if we're growing in a spiritual way
as we get older, we learn how to become more authentic,
more honest. And the paradox with Alzheimer's is, although they
(14:50):
may lose their mind as some people call it, when
they go through this disability, they they actually become more
in touch, more authentic with their feelings. Now, of course
they have you know, these other types of time travel,
which is cognitive cognitive time travel, and you know all
(15:11):
these what we used to call regression now are just
forms of time travel.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I like that your model reveals a shift in the
way a person experiences the world. You say that the
person with Alzheimer's is not suffering from an awful disease,
but just living life differently.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Yeah, you know, I don't take credit for that. I
give Alan Power credit for that. He actually launched our
program at Texas State, America's first master's degree in dementia
studies at Texas State, where Lynnon Johnson went to school,
(15:58):
by the way, LBJ. But you know, yeah, you know,
but regardless, you know, he he this is his definition
and I feel very comfortable with it. I think it's
a good way to look at it because we have
to see this as a disability with strengths, with abilities
(16:22):
and start finding ways to join them in this time travel.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
In your time travels, the loops they get narrow at
the end stage.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
It just means that there's less variation in you know,
at the beginning, you get these increments of decade decade
increments and shifts of you know, time travel, you know,
seventy eighty back to seventy, back to eighty, and then
you get down to you know, the teen years, and
(16:56):
they're smaller. So one day they're ten, the next day
they're fifteen. Then they're five, they're ten, you know, they're five,
they're eight. It's smaller. This is inexact, it's not totally exact,
but it's what's called a model. It's a paradigm to
help people understand that there's less variation in those once
(17:21):
they time travel back to their early years of childhood
in their head. But the loops are all connected, so
they still can have those brief moments of lucidity that
shoot them back up to the present. And I got
contacted by a person named Darren Evans in the UK
(17:42):
who's developed an app that it's based on time travel.
He says, your theory matches us perfectly. And what family
care givers do is they feed their caregiver information into
the app, informiationion about the person with Alzheimer's. For example,
(18:03):
you feed you know, favorite early foods, brothers, sisters, pictures,
music that relate back to early the earlier years. So
all of that information is in the app that matches up.
So when they time travel back to the early years,
and you realize that there were songs back in say
(18:25):
the nineteen fifties that they listened to. Once they're time
traveled to back age, you know, eight, you put on
blue suede shoes and they basically know what you're you know,
they it's instant identification and validation. And so you're then
(18:46):
practicing some of Naomi files. You know, she puts the
earphones on a person with dementia and plays those early songs. Well,
this is what time travel is doing right right, And
you then become their best friend once you accommodate their
needs with the time travel matchup. Proper pictures, proper music,
(19:09):
proper faces. I didn't have fixed pictures of the five
boys my mother raised, she had bascular dementia. I have
pictures of her sisters and her parents and the farm.
She hated the farm, but she wanted to get off
the farm, right. But you know, I have pictures of
(19:30):
a piano that was her escape as playing the piano.
But you know, the farm did bring back some good
memories because it was it was connected to her family.
Not all reminiscence as positive, by the way, so you've
got to be careful about picture selection. It may be
horrors back in the you know, those early years for
(19:53):
people that have been abused in certain family systems. So
understanding the person, understanding their life history essential to time travel.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
And that helps with behaviors, behavior expressions.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Absolutely, there are there are family members in their time
travel that they don't like that are not going to
bring back positive memories, and there are ones they absolutely love.
And there are other personages that if you have the pictures,
(20:27):
it could bring back very good memories. If they had
picture of my you know, kindergarten teacher, Miss Valentine, they
had her picture, I'd light up because she.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Was she was I loved her, a vivid memory.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
It's a vivid memory. She was so sweet to me.
And so you know, uh, those are people, uh you
know that that in you know, if I were to
have Alzheimer's, I have time travel, they're in introduced to me,
that would be instant identification and instant joy and happiness.
(21:06):
You want to bring joy to their life, you have
to match up with their time travel, right, and that
involves knowledge of a life history, gathering facts, and you're
in a professional caregiving situation, has to find a family
member that knows these facts and is able to feed
(21:27):
it into the app or feed it into their whatever
type of data set they have on the person. And
then have enough help and nurse ades that are properly
trained in dementia care and understand time travel. If they
not only have proper queuing by the door, they have
proper types of activities instead of warehousing activities, they have
(21:52):
person centered activities. They have person centered music, person centered food.
You know it's a huge obligation.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Sure, yes, Thank you so much for your time today.
Alzheimer's is a trip back in time was the name
of the article by doctor Chris Johnson and his wife,
doctor Roxanne Johnson. I wish her the best and thank
you so much for visiting with us today, doctor Johnson,
and thank you so much for what you've done and
an impact you've had on the dementia population.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Thank you, Dana and people can feel free to contact
me in Texas State if they have any questions.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Well that's it for us today, Thank you for listening.
The Memory whisper is a production of iHeartRadio and the
Seneca Women Podcast Network. It's produced by Me, Dana Turedo,
and honor of Peggy and all those affected by Alzheimer's disease.
I offer a special thanks to my audio editor, Blake Longlane,
and to Michael Andrews, a person with dementia, who gave
(23:03):
me permission to use his beautiful flute music for this podcast.
For more information or to reach me directly, head on
over to my website, the Memory Whisperer dot com. And
for those struggling with a diagnosis, remember my motto, the
more you know, the better it'll go. Blessings,
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com