Advice From Your Advocates
Advice From Your Advocates
Unlocking Communication: Speech Therapy Strategies for Dementia and Elder Care
In this episode of Advice From Your Advocates Podcast, Attorney Bob Mannor speaks with Lenora Edwards, speech & language pathologist, and Chief Knowledge Officer at Better Speech, about the importance of speech therapy, particularly for the elderly and those experiencing cognitive decline.
Bob and Lenora discuss how online therapy can be beneficial, especially for caregivers and family members, and the role of communication strategies in managing conditions like dementia. Lenora also emphasizes the significance of nonverbal communication and the integration of neuro-linguistic programming in therapy. The conversation concludes with practical tips for families dealing with these challenges.
Listen to learn more about how:
- Better Speech offers online therapy that is accessible anywhere.
- Recording therapy sessions can help reinforce learning for patients and caregivers.
- Speech therapy can address not just speech but also swallowing and cognitive issues.
- Family involvement is crucial in the therapy process for dementia patients.
- Engaging the brain through activities can slow cognitive decline.
- Nonverbal communication is key in interactions with dementia patients.
- Adjusting tone and approach can significantly impact communication effectiveness.
- Neuro-linguistic programming can enhance communication strategies in therapy.
- Respect and dignity should be maintained in all interactions with elderly patients.
- Curiosity and open-mindedness are essential for families navigating dementia care.
More on our guest:
Lenora Edwards, Board Certified Speech-Language Pathologist and Chief Knowledge Officer at Better Speech, is a communication expert with over 15 years of experience specializing in adult communication. Integrating Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and evidence-based techniques, Lenora empowers professionals to master public speaking, refine interpersonal skills, and optimize nonverbal cues, guiding them towards achieving their personal and professional communication goals with clarity and confidence.
To learn more about Mannor Law Group visit: www.mannorlawgroup.com
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ABOUT US:
Mannor Law Group helps clients in all matters of estate planning and elder law including special needs planning, veterans’ benefits, Medicaid planning, estate administration, and more. We offer guidance through all stages of life.
We also help families dealing with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other illnesses that cause memory loss. We take a comprehensive, holistic approach, called Life Care Planning. LEARN MORE...
You're listening to Advice from your Advocates, a show where we provide elder law advice to professionals who work with the elderly and their families.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Advice from your Advocates. I'm Bob Manor. I'm a board-certified elder law attorney in Michigan and we have a great guest today Lenora Edwards from Better Speech. She's a board-certified speech-language pathologist. Make sure I said that right. I might have gotten your credentials a little bit wrong.
Speaker 1:Hi Lenora, how are you doing? I am great. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:So tell us a little bit about your credentials. I might have flubbed over that a little bit, but I think it's important that you have the board certification. So tell us a bit about who you are and those credentials.
Speaker 1:You did beautiful. Not to worry, I am a board-certified speech-language pathologist. Some people might hear of us as a speech therapist and as a board-certified clinician. We have often four years of undergrad and two years of a master's program, something along those lines. There are now five-year programs, but I've been certified and in the field since 2009. And I have quite a bit of experience working in every area, especially in the elder care community. So I'm very excited to spend time with you.
Speaker 2:And you are the chief knowledge officer for Better Speech. So tell us a little bit about Better Speech and tell us about what a chief knowledge officer does.
Speaker 1:So with Better Speech, we are an online speech therapy company, and what I love about that is, especially in our very busy world of today, a lot of the time receiving speech therapy services can feel like this overwhelming process where, oh my gosh, I have to pause in the middle of the day. I have to get in the car, drive to the clinic park, get in, get settled, see my clinician leave, start my day again and continue on. And with Better Speech, which is an online speech therapy company, we are there anywhere you are. So if you're traveling or if you happen to have an older loved one that is at home and it's quite taxing for them to leave the house, we're right there with you. So, especially when technology has advanced so much, it's a great thing. It's way better than dial-up, for sure, but especially with Better Speech, we are on Zoom, so we have that HIPAA compliance that everybody is often curious about, and we are also able to record our therapy sessions and what I love about.
Speaker 1:That is a lot of the time, especially when you're in an outpatient clinic and if you're there for a short amount of time, as those sessions can move very quickly, you get this torrid of information coming at you, and if you're there for a short amount of time, as those sessions can move very quickly, you get this torrid of information coming at you and you're hoping that you remember all of it or you're trying to take notes as to what to do and what strategies they're recommending. The great thing, now that we're on Zoom, you can record the entire session, and then the nice thing is is that you can share that session with your loved ones or with the caregivers that are present with the individual receiving therapeutic services. There's a lot of benefits to online therapy. That just happens to be one or two of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that actually makes a lot of sense. I hadn't thought about that additional advantage of being able to record the session. I recall when I had my rotator cuff done and I had physical therapy, I'd get home and I couldn't remember exactly how I was supposed to move it or exactly what exercises I was supposed to do. It'd be very helpful to have that, especially with speech therapy, which can be a little bit more nuanced and be able to reinforce it. Plus, you know, a lot of this is folks that you know, especially if we're dealing with family members as caregivers or family members around the person that is receiving the speech therapy reinforcement. So watching that session multiple times might be really useful for reinforcement, because it's hard to change old habits, right, Right?
Speaker 1:Very much so, especially if it's in the area of a loved one that's experiencing, let's say, dementia or Alzheimer's or Parkinson's Depending on what area of focus you're having for therapy is really important. So, for example, as a clinician, as a speech pathologist, I often say we work from the neck and up and people are often thinking well, you're a speech therapist, how's my speech? And for the elderly population, they'll often say, well, nothing's wrong with my speech. And I'll often say you're right, but I hear you might have some trouble swallowing your food or maybe something's hard for you to chew. Or I'll say, well, that you're right, your speech is great, but I hear you're having some trouble with your memory. And then, oh, yeah, you're right, my memory is terrible. Yeah, I can't chew meat.
Speaker 1:Those are details that a lot of people don't realize that speech pathology is connected to. So that's why we say from the neck and up, because food and swallowing are involved, especially throughout the aging process, and especially memory sequencing, problem solving, forgetting where you put something, forgetting how to write a check, forgetting what time you took your medication or if you took your medication. These are all areas that are our area of expertise and during those therapy sessions when we're adding strategies, when we're talking about what is going on at home or what else is occurring. Where are your strengths? What are you noticing that you're concerned about? All gets into play, so being able to record the session and then share it at home and rewatch it can be extraordinarily helpful.
Speaker 2:I think it's overlooked by speech therapy that really memory issues and communication are very important when it comes to dementia or Alzheimer's or any of the memory issues, and a lot of people overlook the fact that speech therapy can help with that. So let's talk a little bit more about that particular. I think sometimes what I understood from you, from talking to you before, is that sometimes it's a matter of actually also teaching the family how to communicate, the caregivers how to communicate.
Speaker 1:Very, very much so. So, especially when it comes to dementia or Alzheimer's any neurological decline there's different stages and there are times where you might hear that your loved one is diagnosed with dementia and you might think, oh my God, they're in a nursing home and I have to put them away right away. That's not the case. When somebody starts to experience signs of memory loss or signs of having cognitive difficulty, we like to look at it as a whole. Is it a sudden onset, such as? Is a medication shifting and suddenly they're having a different response to it? So that's always something to pay attention to. Have you reached out to your physicians? Do we know what really is going on inside? And being able to help people get a better, clear picture of that individual that is experiencing those cognitive difficulties is so important. So, even if we talk about the early stages of dementia yes, there are things like forgetting to put your keys in the right place there are other signs, such as putting milk in the cupboard and cereal in the fridge as you're shifting. Things can be very, very sequential, but if you're noticing a pattern of this in your loved one, or perhaps taking the eggs out of the frying pan and not turning off the burner. Those are very small indicators that something else might be going on.
Speaker 1:Other things that you also want to pay attention to is is that loved one able to consistently take their medication? If they're on medication, are they taking their vitamins? Are they consistently eating? Are they consistently taking themselves to the bathroom? How's their hygiene?
Speaker 1:So all these daily activities and sometimes you might hear the key phrase of ADLs, which is activities of daily living are very important to notice. Make sure you have a really good picture of what they were like, where they are now, because things can change in a short period of time. And if we're talking short period of time, does that look like a year, lenore? No, that looks like possibly two to three months of a change, and you're going to start to notice things along the way, so you definitely want to pay attention. One thing that I absolutely encourage people to do is notice their routines and write down their routines, and if you start to notice that there might be maybe a hiccup or two or hey, that was weird make a note of it and write it. Keep track of it in your phone, keep track of it in a notebook, whatever you want. Make a note of what it was and the date that it was, because that can be extraordinarily helpful.
Speaker 2:A little bit more about how speech therapy can help with those things. So that was an excellent review of warning signs to be looking at to see that this might be leading in this direction. Tell us a little bit more about how speech therapy can help with these issues once it's been identified.
Speaker 1:Definitely issues, once it's been identified, definitely With speech therapy. If a loved one is still at home and you're starting to notice these cognitive indicators of a decline, working with your neurologist or with your loved one's neurologist, working with the primary care and saying these are the things that I'm noticing, I would like an order to receive speech therapy services. That is truly, truly helpful because you're communicating to your physician that there's a concern. That being said, it's also something that you will definitely need to have speech therapy services reimbursed through whatever provider of healthcare insurance that you have. And when you receive speech therapy services, you wanna work with your clinician and say here are the things that we're noticing, this is what their daily routine was like, this is what we're starting to see, and the reason that's so important is because, when you're working with your healthcare providers such as myself, I would be a healthcare provider we want to get as clear of a picture of that individual what's going on, where are they and then that's how we set our goals, where we want to go.
Speaker 1:If a loved one is experiencing cognitive decline and they're forgetting to eat regularly or they're forgetting to write things down or they're forgetting names, that's okay. What we do as a clinician, as the speech therapy team is. We implement strategies, we offer tips and techniques and we also help work with them to improve their memory so that way they're not having this massive decline. The reason it's so important is because neurons that fire together and wire together. That's a great thing. We want to keep that brain healthy, we want to keep it strong, we want to keep it focused, we need to give it tasks, we need to keep it engaged.
Speaker 1:If your loved one is spending 8, 10, 12 hours in front of the TV, that's not an engaged brain, that is a very passively engaged brain. Actively engaged brains include having conversations, doing tasks, going to the grocery store with somebody, quite literally writing stuff down, being active, moving in your body, and it's so important to be engaged. The more actively engaged you are, the more likely that that individual will remember information, because it's not going by them like it's on TV. They're a part of it, they're engaged in it and then, after the task, asked after the event, have a conversation about it, keep it active in their memory, especially for loved ones that are. If your loved one is experiencing a cognitive decline, it's really important for family and friends and that support network to do this, because it's going to keep that individual that much more engaged and it's going to slow the progressive decline, which is a great thing.
Speaker 2:We had a guest on the podcast a while back that talked about how many families that have a loved one with Alzheimer's or dementia they start to cocoon and like you say, really not leave the house, really not expose dad or mom to the outside world, but then what happens with that is then they're not accessing the resources and the things like speech therapy and other things that could help with this. And one of the key points that I think is really key on this is for the families to understand that well, all the things that you just mentioned where we're engaging the brain, those types of things well, it might extend the period of time that the person is more able to interact with people. It certainly makes that time better than if they're just sitting in front of a TV. The ability to communicate with family is key to this, and so these types of activities, this type of engagement, will make the time that you have with this person more fulfilling, more quality of life for both the family and the person that needs care.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I could not agree more, and especially for families that are experiencing this, especially when they hear it for the first time and they don't have a history of a loved one that's already gone through it. They're hearing very target words. They're hearing very, very hot buzzwords that you might hear on TV or that you might've heard in a read in a magazine, and you don't know a lot of information. You just know that this is something your loved one does not want to have, and, oh my gosh, allow yourself to recognize that there's a lot you don't know, and that's okay. You're not supposed to know about it.
Speaker 1:What you can do, though, is really start connecting with other people and ask for their stories, ask for their insights. Go to support groups, educate yourself. Allow yourself to recognize that educating yourself will take longer than a week. Really get curious as to how people do live with this and what their quality of life is. A lot of the time that buzzword of dementia or Alzheimer's, people think, oh my God, they're gone and that's it. That's not it at all. To really start to notice that there is a community for individuals who experience dementia and Alzheimer's and the caregivers of people providing that care to those with dementia and Alzheimer's. It really is something that you can recognize and say, okay, this is going to be a journey, they're not in the grave. I can keep them at home to the best of my ability. I can support them to the best of my ability and I can be supported as much as I'm willing to allow myself to be supported.
Speaker 2:You and I have talked previously about this, about how with a family member, particularly if it's a spouse and you know it's very difficult with this significant change in the way that someone can interact, if they've been, if they have Alzheimer's or any form of dementia, and so sometimes it's difficult for the family member like I say, particularly a spouse to accept that this is actually the disease, as opposed to their husband just being grumpy or their wife just doing the same things, that the baggage that comes with 50 years of marriage I suppose.
Speaker 2:But the thing is that is one of those communication issues. Not only is the communication issue where we're trying to make sure that the person is able to communicate, but also that the family is able to communicate. So if you could talk a little bit about that, but also about how much communication is actually not just the words that we say, it's not just the voice that we use or sometimes it is the tone of the voice, but it's not just the words that we say so how it might make a big difference for a family member if they can kind of adjust to this and accept that this is actually part of the disease and that we might have to change the way that we communicate, even if this is the way we've done it for 50 years.
Speaker 1:You've said that so beautifully, so, so beautifully. And when it comes to a loved one who's experiencing dementia, whether it's your husband or your wife or whomever it might be, there is such a thing as people becoming very short and very what can come across as mean or nasty. There are times where people have dementia and they're considered the pleasant ones that they don't remember anything, but they're lovely all the time. There are also individuals who experience the opposite, and they can be very short and very nasty. That being said, that individual if you can maintain this one piece of information at all times that individual would much rather not have this disease, much rather not have it. They are not. Despite however they come across, they are not doing it intentionally. There's a shift in their chemical, hormonal balance. There is a shift in their sleeping, there is a shift in their memory loss. There are so many things going on that, even though part of us might want to say they're doing it on purpose I know they're being mean on purpose they really aren't. They're really trying to do their best and, as the loved one, as the care provider, as the person that is a part of this journey with them, the best thing that I can do to support them is allow myself to take breaks but also change my tone of voice.
Speaker 1:When somebody is very harsh, very nasty, and you can hear it in their voice and they just come after you, allow yourself to shift your voice and when you can become softer, when you can speak slower, it's going to help regulate your nervous system and it's also going to help you recognize. I'm going to need to exercise a lot of emotional control right now and that's okay. I'm going to do my best to be patient. When we tap into our change of a voice, when we slow our speech, it can be very helpful and it can also shift that person because their tone is totally different. You are controlling yours with intention and it will help regulate that other individual.
Speaker 1:So if they're having a bad period of time, you can say okay, I see you need a break. Right now, I'm going to pause, I'm going to, I'm going to stay over here. You tell me when you're ready. You're telling that individual what's going on. You're acknowledging that they're frustrated, you're acknowledging where they are and you're also allowing that space that needs to occur for them to calm down. You're also allowing yourself a space that needs to occur to calm down because it can be very taxing, it can be very frustrating, it can be very heartbreaking for you as the caregiver. And when you can notice that, when you can just recognize I just need to pause, slow my speech and soften my tone and allow that space to maneuver, it will be so much more effective when you have those interactions, especially when you have interactions with somebody who is not in a good mood.
Speaker 2:I think one of the things that you said there that's so important that people overlook is the idea that by changing your tone, if you're forcing yourself to sort of change your tone, that also has an effect on you. It's not just you know the effect that it has on other people. If you add a speak in a more, it doesn't just affect how the other person interacts. It actually is. You know, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. It helps you regulate your own emotions, which I think is really important and something that people overlook quite a bit.
Speaker 1:Very much so.
Speaker 2:I want to get into. I know that you've been an expert at integrating neurolinguistic programming, or what is usually called NLP, into the you know for evidence-based techniques for using speech pathology and speech therapy. Tell us a little bit more about that. Maybe some of our listeners have heard of neuro-linguistic programming. Some of them haven't. Tell us a little bit more about that and how that helps with the role that you do and the role in speech therapy and speech pathology.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Being certified in NLP has truly helped me become a better communicator. Also, it's more of the study of language when we can understand if somebody's saying I don't see what you're saying. I don't see what you're saying and you're saying can't you hear me, can't you hear me when we break it down. Somebody saying I don't see, they're more of a visual. They need that visual demonstration for them to better understand that other person had said can't you hear me? That other person is more of an auditory person. So they're just really little nuances that can be very helpful along the way For me when it comes to communication.
Speaker 1:If I know my client is much more of a visual learner, I will make pictures. I will not just make a cartoon pictures. I will use pictures of their belongings to better help their sequencing skills. So if they are needing to go to the bathroom and it has to go in a certain sequence and they're forgetting to do certain things along the way, I will have that caregiver take pictures of what needs to happen so that visual can hang in the way. I will have that caregiver take pictures of what needs to happen so that visual can hang in the bathroom.
Speaker 1:And when they look at that visual. They're not looking at a cartoon picture of possibly a bathroom or whatever I found on the web. They're looking at their pictures. They're looking at their clothes, and that can be much more effective. If somebody is much better at understanding written words rather than typing it out, I will have that caregiver and that client write out those steps to better help them understand. We want individuals to be able to understand information in ways that are meaningful to them. The more we can do that, the more we can engage that brain and engage that individual, the better they will be able to maintain their cognitive skills. So those are just some little things that I've used along the way, very specifically when it comes to NLP.
Speaker 2:Very nice Talk to us a little bit about and I think this goes hand in hand with what you've been saying but the importance of nonverbal communication when communicating with someone with dementia.
Speaker 1:So when it comes to nonverbal communication, a lot of people think that nonverbal communication might just be something like eye contact. When we're talking about verbal communication versus nonverbal, there's a variety of research out there that says 70 plus percent of what you're saying is nonverbal. What does that look like? That looks like your eye contact. That looks like your posture. That looks like your facial expressions. It also sounds like your tone. There's so many pieces that are coming in, as well as your energy. There's so many pieces that go into effective communication. If I'm turned away from you and I'm not looking at you and I'm looking down, how active of a communication interaction are we having? Not a very strong one. When I look at you, when we're having the conversation especially in our culture we're very big on eye contact in the US when we're having this face-to-face interaction, when I can be in the same position, on the same eye level as you, you're going to be much more engaged in my interactions and that's a great thing. That is a piece of our effective communication. Being able to have all of these, along with words, on the same plane allows for a much more impactful level of communication, allows for a much more impactful level of communication.
Speaker 1:When we're with a loved one, or if somebody is a caregiver and they're spending a lot of time together, they're not always aware of this because they're doing other things. Maybe they're preparing a meal in the kitchen or maybe they're doing something else and they're having this flyby of a conversation. The person who might be sitting in a chair watching you and kind of hearing you isn't very engaged, even though you might be engaged because you might be in your 50s or in your 60s and you're firing totally differently. Your loved one, who might be 80 or 90, is not firing on the same level as you are. When you need that strong interaction or when you're having that effective communication, you want to be paying attention to each other. Whether you're at the same table, whether you pull up a chair and you sit down next to them, you want to have this engaged interaction. Being present in the room is simply being present in the room. Being present in the interaction, in the communication that's occurring.
Speaker 2:that's a completely different story. I have a quick example on that. So I had a client who was in a care setting and they were concerned and they had talked to the family about mom being violent. And I thought, boy, that just doesn't seem consistent with every meeting I've had with mom on this. And so the example that they gave was that she was in a wheelchair, I believe, and she appeared chilly. So they tried to put a sweater on her, but they approached her from behind and this was the, the caregiver.
Speaker 2:And the thing is, when, with dementia, you don't have the same understanding of your surroundings and your brain's not always explaining everything as quickly as it would with someone without dementia, and so approaching someone with dementia from behind, that may feel like they're being attacked right or even from above, you know, and so the idea is that she probably would not have reacted violently had the person come around to the front, got on her level, like you say, look her in the eye and say are you chilly, can I put a sweater on you?
Speaker 2:And that would have probably been a completely different interaction. I think, some of the times when we have what in the industry we sometimes call behaviors, meaning that there is some bad behaviors that make it difficult for the caregivers. Those can be addressed by some of this communication style, by getting on somebody's level, by making sure we're doing our best to communicate with them as opposed to just you know doing the thing. It's not surprising that someone that doesn't have a full understanding of their surroundings would react in that way and, you know, kind of push back on that.
Speaker 1:Is that a good example? That is an excellent example. Absolutely, especially when they're not, let's say they're not at home. They're at your home, which is the home of the caregiver, and they've been there for a number of years, or, excuse me, they visited over the years, but it's not their home. So now, technically, you have them in a different environment, so approaching them from behind can be very alarming to them.
Speaker 1:And you're completely right when we're having interactions, we want to let them know what we're going to do before we do it, especially when and you might not see this too often in the early stages of dementia. You might see this more in the moderate or the severe levels of dementia, but letting them know what you're going to do quite literally communicates I'm not a threat, I'm not in a dangerous situation right now. Another one also, which can we see often in the advanced population, is when they're requiring assistance for having to go to the bathroom. There's a lot of behaviors, and the reason that is is for what some people may or may not consider very obvious. They might think I've done this for years with them, I'm taking care of them, don't you know what I'm doing To that individual? You're no longer all that familiar, but it can feel a lot to that individual that's experiencing dementia, like sexual abuse, and we need to be very respectful of that and help them understand. This is what I'm going to do next. I'm a safe person. You can trust me and helping them understand that on multiple levels.
Speaker 1:Again, with that nonverbal communication, again with the tone we want to communicate to them what's going on. And if you even flip the tables and think, okay, you know, I don't remember what I ate for breakfast, I don't always remember the environment, and this person that I'm looking at is sometimes familiar to me, how would you feel? And trying to understand it from their perspective, how do you want to be cared for? We need to be, to the best of our ability, as considerate as possible. The more considerate we are, the more we communicate with them, the more we let them know what's coming and what to expect. We quite literally have much more control over their behaviors because we're sharing with them what's coming. It's not a surprise. They're not getting caught off guard and they're not quite literally under fight, flight or freeze.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so would that also apply? I think it would, but I want to ask you would it also apply when you know it gets to the stage which sometimes it does, that the person is actually nonverbal? The person with dementia is nonverbal. That doesn't give us an excuse to not try to communicate with them. Just because they can't communicate verbally doesn't mean that we still have an obligation to do all the things that you just mentioned. And they're, you know, maybe in a lesser way, but they're still able to perceive communication, particularly from the standpoint of, you know, like tone and movement, and you know eye level, things like that.
Speaker 1:I am so glad that you mentioned that. Absolutely, when it comes to communication and, very specifically, language, language is two parts. We have the ability to understand language, which we consider our receptive part of language, such as if I give you a direction, you'd be able to carry it out, or if I asked you a WH question, you're able to receive that information and know what to do with it. Then we have the expressive part of language, which is the words that are quite literally coming out my mouth as I'm speaking. We string them in a sentence and we're communicating effectively as an individual advances. Communicating effectively as an individual advances. They might not be able to find all of their words, such as hey, can you pass the yeah, that thing over, yeah that? And you go oh, you want me to pass the salt. So we call that missing the target word when they can't name something. That being said, it progresses. So they might not just remember a loved one's name. They might not remember to tell somebody I have to go to the bathroom, as in they've now lost the words, they're not communicating or their words sound, their words sound like that. They don't. They're not what we consider effectively communicating. They can't express their wants and their needs. That being said, when we go to have an interaction with somebody and I've worked in skilled nursing facilities and outpatient clinics and inpatient clinics for years when we go into that room to say hello to that person good morning, how are you? Today is November 25th. It's so good to see you. My name's Lenora. I'm going to help get you ready for this morning and letting them know what to do. You can tell by my tone. They might not understand a single thing, but they can see by the expression on my face that I'm not a threat. They can hear by the tone of my voice that I'm not a threat as I move and I don't make abrupt movements. They can watch me and I can show them their clothes. Okay, we're going to wear a purple shirt today or a red shirt, and give them choices. These are all a part of it.
Speaker 1:Even if they might not be fully, actively engaged and able to say I want to wear the purple one, we still want to give them that respect, we want to give them that dignity and we also want to be sure that we are treating them in the same sincere way that, hey, we want to be treated, but also at the same level. So, for example, to my 95-year-old client I would not say, oh, which one do you want? Do you want the red one or do you want the purple one? I would treat them with the respect and the dignity that they deserve at 95. Would you like the red one or would you like the purple one?
Speaker 1:A lot of the time people will shift their tone and they'll take their tone down to a child tone. We want to be respectful. Another key one is I don't call them diapers and we don't call them whatever other term people use for that. We call them briefs or we call them underwear. Give them that dignity. It is so important and it is truly communicated on such a deeper level than it's actually given credit for.
Speaker 2:That's very nice, very nice. Well, to shift gears just a little bit. I imagine, having studied this and studied communication, that you actually are able to see this, that in just everybody, that sometimes you'll notice that people's expression perhaps is not in congruence with what they're actually feeling, and that's very helpful. I think I notice occasionally with folks if I'll make a demand or request for them. There's some folks that just have this you know, deer in headlights look because they have to process it.
Speaker 2:I have a couple of consultants that help me with accounting matters and when I talk to them about ideas or things, they always have this look of skepticism on their face. What I've learned is they're actually intensely listening to what I say and I probably do that myself. Or if I'm intensely listening to what somebody says, I probably have this look of skepticism on my face. And just recognizing this for everybody, not just for folks with dementia that sometimes the expressions might not match up with the actual feelings that somebody's had. They just need time to focus or concentrate or they need to take in the new information. So I imagine that's something that you experience in daily life, where you see where sometimes things aren't always congruent with people's actual feelings about the situation.
Speaker 1:Very much so, and especially if you go up to somebody and you say, hey, can you help me with this really quick, depending on the tone that we approach somebody with, that will impact their response. That being said, depending on where that individual is, quite literally, in their own thoughts if they're thinking of a fight that they had with somebody earlier that day, or if they're thinking of all the tasks that they have to get done and they're not in a bad mood, or that they are in a bad mood, your response, the response that you're going to receive, can be completely different and you're going to feed off each other's tone. So this really goes into a much deeper level of emotional intelligence and community effective communication goes into a much deeper level of emotional intelligence and effective communication. When I go to have an interaction with somebody, it is different. For example, when I go to interact with my husband, it's going to be very different than when I go to interact with my client. That being said, because of the work that I do, I'm very tuned to somebody's response and I can hear where they are emotionally just by listening to their voice. I also happen to be quite empathetic. That's another bonus.
Speaker 1:When I can hear somebody, I will stop. If they respond to me in a way that doesn't feel like it was meant for me, I'll say, oh, is everything okay? Yeah, everything's fine. Are you sure, or are you thinking of something else, or is something else on your mind? A lot of the time, something else is on their mind.
Speaker 1:So when you're noticing the incongruency in somebody's receptiveness to your conversation, it might have nothing to do with you. That being said, if you're asking a task or if you're asking somebody to do something for you hey, can you help me with this? And you're going on a list of what you need help with, their brain needs time to process. So pausing or even asking along the way, does this make sense? Are you following my thoughts? Am I being clear? It might be that I am being clear. It might be that that person's distracted, or it might be that I'm not being. It might be that that person's distracted or it might be that I'm not being clear, and I want to have that effective communication. So watching somebody's facial expression can be very, very helpful. Also listening to their tone.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's great. Those are great tips. Tell us a little bit more how the listeners can interact with better speech. So we have a lot of variety of listeners, from people in the long-term care industry to social workers, to just general folks that are interested in these topics. And so how would? What's the best way to interact with your company? Better Speech.
Speaker 1:For reaching out to us. If you would like to schedule some time with us, just simply visit betterspeechcom and we will get you scheduled to work with a board-certified speech-language pathologist right away. If you're curious about the things that we do, you can also visit betterspeechcom, and we have loads of insights in our blog, and we also have quite the YouTube channel and social media links in there. The best way to reach out to us is at betterspeechcom.
Speaker 2:I did have an opportunity to check out your website. It's very good. It has a lot of great content in it, so I do recommend people check that out, thank you. Any final tips for families that are dealing with these issues before we wrap up today.
Speaker 1:My final tip would be to be curious and to be open-minded. The more curious and the more open-minded you can be, especially for your loved one, and you can release that judgment of what might happen. It will be extraordinarily helpful to you, you'll be able to reach out to other people and you'll be able to have a much better experience going through the entire experience, because there's so much that you don't know and there are many people that are still safely living at home, with strategies, with certain things in place that keep them safe at home, and not everybody goes to a nursing home and not everybody is a horror story home and not everybody is a horror story, right.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks so much, lenore Edwards, from the Chief Knowledge Officer at Better Speech. If you've enjoyed this podcast, don't forget to subscribe. You can find us at any place that you can find podcasts, or you can find us on YouTube or our website at manorlawgroupcom. Thanks again and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. To learn more, visit manorlawgroupcom.
