Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Validating communication

This video was produced some time ago, but I had not seen it.  Please take a few minutes and watch the interaction between Naomi Feil and Gladys Wilson. Stick with it to the end.


Many thanks to Janice Lynch Schuster for bringing this to my attention.  Janice recently wrote an article about steps you can take to communicate with people with dementia.  The article made mention of the "validation method" pioneered by Feil in the 1980's.  That is what is at work in the video.

While there have been questions raised about the method in the scientific community, I dare you to watch this video and not feel that it has some power.

If you cannot see the video, click here.

2 comments:

Patricia Devine said...

Thank you! This is fantastic. I had a similar experience with my mother-in-law when she was dying, and could no longer speak. One of her nurses discovered she would sing "Fuzzy Wuzzy was a Bear" if sang to her.

Nancy Thomas said...

Incredibly emotional to watch. That is why we must choose our caregivers so very carefully...and commit to training them in taking care of the soul inside as much as the bodily needs....do we do this? Our nurses and caregivers are surrounded with data check-offs and quality measures - the high touch is almost more important than the high tech demands of care - especially for those left without family.