Pat

Pat, aged 75, has a diagnosis of mixed dementia and takes medication for this. She is a retired office manager and lives with her husband, Barrie.  She has always enjoyed reading and writing and is a published author.

During the week, Pat and her husband like to visit local cafes and they are involved with two dementia support groups. Pat goes to an activity day once a week for people living with dementia where she bakes and plays games. Pat enjoys going to this group but isn’t always able to remember what activities she has been doing. The same group run a dementia café which Pat and Barrie go to together. They also enjoy walking around a park nearby and visiting the seaside.

Pat’s son and daughter visit her regularly. As well as baking at the dementia group, Pat’s daughter helps her to bake at home. Pat also enjoys singing so her daughter takes her to a dementia singing group once a week and has a karaoke machine at her house for Pat to use. Although Pat struggles with her memory, she can often remember song lyrics. Pat’s daughter and son-in-law are musicians so when they are performing at local venues, Barrie takes her to watch them.

Be kind, says Pat, and help each other.

Well to try not to argue with your neighbours [laughter] to try and just be good with, with everyone and to love everyone; I know that’s difficult and it maybe seems a bit, you know, bibleish, but I don’t think it is. I think it is good to be happy, you know, and try and get someone else to be happy if they’re sad. It’s, it’s always nice to help someone else, and I’ve been helped by people and it’s, it’s wonderful. Mum and dad taught us that.

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Pat’s father encouraged her love of literature.

But my dad was always very good, he was very good at, story-writer and he was always a very good one who wanted to read [laughs] read everything to us. Yeah, he used to like stories and everything, yeah, dad was brilliant.

But it, it was my dad I think probably that encouraged me, because he used to say, “Pat, do what you enjoy doing and you know is going to help you, and if you get stuck just come,” you know, whatever it, because my dad [laughs] my dad and one of his brothers and his father, they all had this shoe repairing business, right? So, we always had good shoes as well [laughs] on us kids going to school, and then my dad made sure we all polished them [laughs] before we went. It was good, yeah, it was smashing, yeah.

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Singing with friends is great fun for Pat and Barrie.

So, you like your music then do you?

Pat: Yeah, I do.

Barrie: Mm.

Pat: I like music. Barrie’s pretty good at it as well.

Barrie: Well, I play guitar a bit [laughs].

Pat: Yeah, you do lots of things. So yeah, it’s good.

That’s lovely. So, do you sing at home then if you’ve got a guitar player; do you like to sing together?

Barrie: Yeah, but not with my guitar [laughs].

Pat: No.

Barrie: We’ve got a karaoke machine in there.

Oh fab.

Pat: Fab.

Barrie: Which, which we do here, but also [daughter], her daughter.

Pat: Yeah.

Barrie: They’ve got a, a, a big set with a, with a lot of songs and it’s one of the things we do when we go and visit them.

Pat: I was going to say when we go over to my daughter’s, you know.

Barrie: Yeah, we get it out, don’t we?

Pat: And we have a really good, we have a really good stomp then [laughs] you know, it’s good, yeah. We all like music though.

Barrie: Yeah, and I must admit.

That’s fun.

Pat: And my dad is a lovely singer too, mm.

Barrie: We, we heard about music and singing being beneficial for people with memory loss; without a doubt it works.

Pat: Yeah.

Barrie: Because even, was it yesterday we were at [daughter]?

Pat: Yeah, yeah.

Barrie: You, you, you were singing a song with her.

Pat: Yeah.

Barrie: But I don’t know, it was from the ‘50s or something, and you knew the words for it.

Pat: Yes, I did, yeah.

Barrie: You, you know.

Pat: It’s something my dad had taught me and he was, had been singing it and I started humming it and so I could remember the words when I was over at [daughter] [laughs] yeah, so I.

Barrie: You know, it just comes out like this, yeah.

Pat: Yeah.

It’s an amazing thing, isn’t it?

Barrie: Oh.

How music and singing works.

Pat: I don’t know how it works either.

No.

Barrie: You, you would think if, if it triggers, you know, your brain neurons to work, why doesn’t it work all the time, you know? [laughs] I really don’t know, but, but it does work, without a doubt.

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Pat can’t always remember the details but she knows she enjoys the group.

Well, you obviously we met at [support group]; so, do you tend to go there quite often?

Barrie: Every week. Two.

Pat: We do, don’t we?

Barrie: Two, two, twice.

Pat: We, yeah, we do.

Barrie: There’s the activity centre.

Pat: Yeah.

Barrie: On a Tueday and Pat goes and joins in everything they’re doing there, and then there’s the café which is on a Thurday morning.

Pat: Yeah, that’s on there as well, yeah.

So, what do you do on a Tueday, Pat? Do you join in with the activities?

Pat: It’s activities I do, yeah, over there, yeah.

What do you like doing especially?

Pat: Oh, I can’t remember, but I do like it, I do like it, yeah, it’s good, mm, yeah.

Barrie: You make biscuits and cakes.

Pat: Yeah, we do.

Barrie: And you play games. They have different activities sort of every week so it just varies a bit. Dominoes and jigsaws.

Pat: What do you do while I’m there?

Barrie: I’ve got a model train set in the roof.

Pat: That’s it, his train, his train.

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Pat contacted her GP after getting muddled about a visit from her daughter.

Barrie: But yeah, they, the time we noticed your memory loss.

Pat: Yeah.

Barrie: Was there, an event, when her daughter had been here and we were at the front there saying goodbye, she drove round the corner at the bottom, Pat turned to me and said, “I think [daughter]’s coming to see us today,” even though she’d just been here two hours; that was the trigger. So yeah, we went to see the GP and got a referral.

Pat: That’s right.

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