One of my ‘soul lights’ is Dr William Cutting, former paediatrician, missionary, and author. I’ve written about him before. He is one of my ‘heroes of the faith’. Now in his 90s he writes about the sadness and joy he feels as his wife Margot, (also a former missionary doctor), lives with dementia in a residential care home. Sadness when a hospital scan showed her brain was small and shrunken, but joy that, despite this, her rare responses show that her spirit is truly ‘alive in Christ’ (Romans 10: 8,11). It’s this joy that lights William’s soul this Christmas time. Conversely, it’s happy memories of Christmases past that can help others living with dementia, even prompting moments of lucidity.

In his email William wrote, "The carers in Oxenford House, who know that she trained as a doctor and once ran a single-handed GP practice, ‘teasingly’ ask her advice. ‘Dr Margot, we have a lady here who is having difficulty sleeping. What would you advise?’ After thinking about it for a few minutes she said, ‘A good starting point is to have a clear conscience!’ Where could she find such a pertinent comment in her sadly shrunken brain?

"Margot does not walk around independently much now. A visitor was surprised to see her walking purposefully with her four-wheel walker recently and asked , ‘Margot, where are you going?’ She responded – ‘I’m going to Heaven.’ She’d responded in a similar way when asked if she would like to go to church. ‘Church is not somewhere I would go to; church is my life,’ she said."

Margot’s story shows how, despite brain damage and changed behaviour, the spirit of the person living with dementia remains. It’s for this reason we emphasise the importance of spiritual support for them and their families.

Making the most of Christmas for people living with dementia

It was an item discussed in last month’s Zoom meeting. Every other month we hold a meeting on various aspects of old age, including dementia, inviting speakers to share their expertise. In November we looked at ‘Making Christmas Special for People Living with Dementia’. We were joined by Sally Nevitt, older persons’ pastor at a church with so many dementia programmes programmes that it’s known locally as ‘the dementia church’, and our own Operations Manager, Jane Trimarco, who supports our Activities and Community Engagement (ACE) Facilitators in our care homes. We discussed ways of integrating spiritual support with dementia care in a range of scenarios, from the person’s home, to a church setting, or hospital, or a residential care home. We looked at what we meant by ‘spiritual interventions’ and saw how relating events to Scripture and biblical stories with believers can prompt moments of lucidity as William saw with Margot. And how tapping into someone’s happy memories and feelings about Christmas can help lift their mood and strengthen their understanding.

Susan (name changed), was looking for ways of helping her mother feel more settled in her care home. Afterwards she emailed saying that based on what she’d learnt in the meeting and the encouragement to keep trying, she took an empty book and Christmas stickers to her mother and started a book of her childhood Christmas memories. She wrote, "I write down what she says, and she picks a sticker to put on the page. A gingerbread man for our paragraph on Christmas baking and a snowman for her story of getting dressed in winter to walk to school. She loves it. Today she helped a worker put up Christmas decorations.

"Instead of avoiding the topic [going to her daughter’s home] because she’s not well enough yet to take to my home for a few hours at Christmas, we are talking about Christmas and I can reassure her that we can still celebrate as a family wherever we are, and we can all go to her nursing home."

At the Zoom meeting we came up with a range of ideas for making the most of Christmas for people living with dementia, and these are listed separately on our website here.