Dementia made my mother a poet

The writer wonders if she had tried hard enough translating the strange dialect that takes over as memory fragments.

- Anthea Rowan

My mother often asked me: “Am I on a ship?”

“No, mum, you're not,’ I'd assure her. “You're high on dry land.”

More and more, though, her dementia created the illusion that she was on a ship, unmoored, her illness cleaving a distance between us. I knew in time that she would fall off the edge of the horizon.

It is only later, long after she’s gone, that I understand she may have been describing a real drift she perceived but could not articulate.

Research shows that people with dementia often harness metaphor to communicate experiences in their desperate bids to remain engaged. They might substitute an unexpected word for the conventional, or invent words and phrases. There’s a surprising magic in the patois of the condition.

One study looked at the narratives of nine people with early-onset dementia and identified over 1,000 metaphors they used to describe the illness. The study’s author Flaminia Miyamasu, an associate professor of medical English at Tsukuba University Faculty of Medicine in Japan, told me that many of the metaphors conveyed existential disintegration, images of “loss, fragmentation, vanishing”. Others spoke of “monster, fog, violence”.

Among the most common metaphors Associate Professor Miyamasu uncovered were ones referencing journeys. “I wonder how much longer I am to carry on travelling,” one participant puzzled. And, incredibly, many expressed being at the mercy of water: “I feel as though I am on a ship in rough seas.”

Looking back, I wonder if I could have listened harder to my mother, done a better job translating dementia’s strange dialect. I found that when I approached my role as her caregiver with more interest and greater patience, it was a less trying job.