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Caregiver’s Corner — Proust & Memory: Read Now Before You Forget!

I think about Proust's quote above often when I think about dementia. What are memory and identity, anyway? Are they fixed and stable for people who do NOT have dementia? What changes for someone who has been diagnosed?

I have often, maybe always, remembered events differently than others who were there. When we compare memories with others, they never match up exactly the same.

In fact, there are events I don't remember at all that had a life-changing impact on others (and vice versa): something I said, something I did, or maybe something that happened or didn't happen.

We want to think we remember things as they were, but we don't. We remember our perspective, and as the details fade we fill them in without realizing it. Our memories are moving and malleable.

If you want proof, run a search about the reliability of eye-witness testimony. (I’ve included one article in this week’s links below.)

We want to believe in the reliability of memory because we build our identities out of our experiences, lessons learned, and accumulated wisdom.

However, the past is always moving for us. All of us. Sometimes I remember the same event differently based on the mood I'm in!

Dementia is a designation we created to describe certain symptoms that we all share, symptoms exaggerated by changes in the brain due to dementia, but not entirely foreign to any of us.

I don’t mean that dementia isn’t real or definable. However, I believe that dementia doesn’t have to be an us-and-them division. Instead, I think it’s one extreme end on a spectrum of human thinking and identify that we all exist on. Looking for points where our experiences intersect may be frightening, but it opens the way for understanding too.

In his quote, Proust wasn't talking about people with dementia. He was talking about all of us. None of us remember things as they truly were. Our memories are not definitive and unerring. Our identities are not fixed in stone.

When you help someone who has dementia, does it change things to imagine all of us living together on different points of the spectrum of memory and identity? Does that alter the way you relate to those you care for who live with dementia?

It's a lesson worth remembering...whatever that means!

🌟 Free Online Course: What is Dementia? 🌟 

🧠 Articles Worth Remembering 🧠 

• Are memories reliable? Expert explains how they change more than we realize (The Conversation): “evidence shows that our memory isn’t as consistent as we’d like to believe. What’s worse, we’re often guilty of changing the facts and adding false details to our memories without even realizing.”

• How reliable is eyewitness testimony? Scientists weigh in (Science.org): “A new report concludes that the use of eyewitness accounts need tighter control.”

• 10 Influential Memory Theories and Studies in Psychology (Psychologist World): “How do our memories store information? Why is it that we can recall a memory at will from decades ago, and what purpose does forgetting information serve?”