Devonshire visitors get chance to experience Dementia

By David Dyck

On the final day of Alzheimer Awareness Month, visitors to Devonshire Mall were given a chance to understand the regular trials experienced by Windsor’s older adults.

Participants were given common tasks to complete including folding laundry and counting change. To mimic dementia, they had to wear oven mitts, taped-up glasses and earmuffs to perform the tasks.

“You don’t really know or understand what people are going through until you go through it yourself,” said Amy Szewczuk, care director for Amy’s Helping Hands. The organization provides homecare services to patients living with dementia and hosted the event along with the Alzheimer Society of Canada. “It’s not even that we’re asking somebody to do a complex activity. We’re actually putting them through a daily task that you or I would do and just really showing the challenges that patients with dementia face every day.”

With more than 100 community members participating in the challenge, The AHH provides homemaking services, personal care for patients living at home and memory therapy to stimulate brain activity for people who are beginning to find ordinary tasks difficult.

“I think the most prevalent comment we’ve heard today is how frustrating it is,” said Szewczuk. “There’s definitely a sense of empathy and understanding.”

In one of the tasks, participants must don taped work gloves, glasses specially designed to impair vision and ear plugs and are then told to go through a wallet and write down the required personal information provided. Many of the cards displayed in the wallet have no bearing on the task at hand, helping participants feel the frustration of spending too long on seemingly ordinary activities.

“Just be patient with those people who have it,” said Mary-Anne Shavon, a 21-year-old student at the University of Windsor who helped visitors through the challenges. “It’s something they don’t know they have and they’re just trying to live their life.”

Szewczuk founded the business after seeing a need for services catering to dementia victims in Windsor. Frustrated by her dad “consistently falling in between the gaps of the system,” she started the company for people willing to pay for the care but unable to find it.

“The event intends to raise awareness of people coping with the disease,” said Szewczuk, who also said it is already more well-known than before she started the organization six years ago.

Szewczuk said people can help just by looking to help those older than themselves through their daily living tasks. More information can be seen at www.amyshelpinghands.ca