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Dementia and dignity

Posted by Staff on July 9, 2024 - 11:03am

Bill Herr taught high school mathematics and science for 32 years. After retiring from teaching, he began a nursing home ministry, first as a volunteer and then as a nursing home chaplain. He has written columns for the Icon on Bluffton sports history and on being a chaplain.

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Can they hear me?

Posted by Staff on June 4, 2024 - 6:00am

Columnist Bill Herr taught high school mathematics and science for 32 years before serving as a volunteer and then as a staff chaplain at two nursing homes.  

By Bill Herr

American culture places a premium on a person being physically attractive and having a friendly, outgoing personality. Movies and television promote this. The opposite is a person that has advanced Alzheimer’s Disease or some other physical disability that renders the person unable to do any activity except to breathe.  

At the nursing home a female resident had experienced several strokes and was unable to move her body at all. She simply lay prone in her bed all day and stared straight ahead. She did not speak or respond at all when I spoke her name and read scripture or prayed.  

When she died, I went to the funeral home visitation. Looking at a collage of pictures of the resident, I was stunned to see a photo that revealed a beautiful young lady in shorts standing at the edge of a woods smiling while holding a shotgun pointed upward. It was the resident. She looked like a movie actress.  

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Handling hurtful words

Posted by Staff on May 21, 2024 - 6:00am

Columnist Bill Herr taught high school mathematics and science for 32 years before serving as a volunteer and then as a staff chaplain at two nursing homes.  

By Bill Herr

One of the most difficult things in life is to forgive someone that wrongs us with words or actions. In the nursing home almost all residents were kind to staff members and other residents. 

Yet some of the kindest ones were hard on immediate members of their families. They would naturally rather live in their own home than in a nursing home. If family members are instrumental in the decision to move a loved one to the nursing home due to health issues or age, there is a tendency to hold family members responsible for feelings of dissatisfaction.

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Remembering couples at the nursing home

Posted by Staff on May 7, 2024 - 6:00am

Columnist Bill Herr taught high school mathematics and science for 32 years before serving as a volunteer and then as a staff chaplain at two nursing homes.  

By Bill Herr

The love between married couples is powerful, and as chaplain I witnessed it among couples that lived in the nursing home. Here are several examples.

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When we remember despite dementia

Posted by Staff on April 23, 2024 - 6:00am

Columnist Bill Herr taught high school mathematics and science for 32 years before serving as a volunteer and then as a staff chaplain at two nursing homes.  

By Bill Herr

When a person develops dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), some of the wiring in the brain gets out of alignment.  The result is difficulty verbalizing, having memory issues and possibly posing behavioral changes.  It is believed that everything we ever learned or experienced in our lives is recorded somewhere in our brain.  

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Dementia and the art of little fibs

Posted by Staff on April 16, 2024 - 6:00am

Columnist Bill Herr taught high school mathematics and science for 32 years before serving as a volunteer and then as a staff chaplain at two nursing homes.  

By Bill Herr

My aunt lived in a nursing home in a nearby city.  I have great memories of my aunt and uncle.  At family gatherings in their home, the younger ones played games and the older ones played cards.  My aunt had been active in social organizations. My uncle had a good job and always had a cigar in his mouth when they played cards. He had passed years before when I went to visit my aunt a nursing home.  

When I visit someone I always bring up past events in that person’s life in the conversation.  When I mentioned my uncle’s name, my aunt, who now had dementia, asked me where he was. I said, “He is in heaven, you remember he died a few years back.”  That was the wrong thing for me to say. My aunt cried and said, “Why didn’t someone tell me?”  She was angry. 

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