Why Dementia Makes Communication Difficult: A Guide to Better Outcomes

Alison Wray

Dementia brings many challenges, not least its ability to disrupt effective communication. The quality of communication plays a major role in how well people living with a dementia manage. When communication doesn’t work well, the complications of dementia are compounded.

Rather than only offering tips on what to say and how to say it, this book explores the underlying motivations of communication, so we can better understand why we say what we do, why we say it the way we do, what can go wrong, and how attempts to fix things can go awry.

As well as considering why communication goes wrong in day-to-day conversations, the chapters offer advice on dealing with awkward moments, the question of deception, and the things we can and can’t control in dementia. Readers are asked to reflect on their own role, and how they can manage their own behaviours to avoid unintentionally blocking routes to productive communication.

Pam mae Dementia yn Gwneud Cyfathrebu’n Anodd
Daw dementia â llawer o heriau yn ei sgil. Yr her fwyaf efallai yw’r ffordd y mae’n tarfu ar gyfathrebu effeithiol. Mae ansawdd cyfathrebu yn chwarae rhan bwysig o ran pa mor dda y mae pobl sy’n byw gyda dementia yn ymdopi. Pan nad yw cyfathrebu yn gweithio’n dda, mae cymhlethdodau dementia yn gallu mynd yn waeth.

Yn hytrach na dim ond cynnig awgrymiadau ar beth i’w ddweud a sut i’w ddweud, mae’r llyfr hwn yn archwilio cymhellion sylfaenol cyfathrebu, fel y gallwn ddeall yn well pam rydyn ni’n dweud beth rydyn ni’n ei ddweud, pam rydyn ni’n ei ddweud yn y ffordd hynny, beth all fynd o’i le, a sut y gall ymdrechion i drwsio pethau fynd o chwith.

Yn ogystal ag ystyried pam mae cyfathrebu yn mynd o’i le mewn sgyrsiau o ddydd i ddydd, mae’r penodau’n cynnig cyngor ar ddelio ag adegau lletchwith, yn trafod twyll, a’r pethau y gallwn ac na allwn eu rheoli gyda dementia. Gofynnir i ddarllenwyr fyfyrio ar eu rôl eu hunain, a sut y gallant reoli eu hymddygiad eu hunain er mwyn osgoi rhwystro llwybrau at gyfathrebu cynhyrchiol yn anfwriadol.

Alison Wray
Alison Wray is a Research Professor at Cardiff University. A linguist by training, her research focuses on the challenges of communication when someone is living with a dementia. Her 2020 book The Dynamics of Dementia Communication won the annual book prize of the British Association for Applied Linguistics and was runner up in the biennial book prize of the American Association for Applied Linguistics. She has created animated films about dementia communication, voiced by Sir Tony Robinson, which are available on YouTube, and has appear on BBC Radio 4’s Word of Mouth and You and Yours and on BBC World America and US National Public Radio