I hope you will indulge me in a thread I have been composing in my head for the past few weeks while taking a break from twitter (anyone else think in tweets?)

Topic: LTC, isolated seniors with dementia, mental health consequences

Title: What happens to older adults living with dementia when they are isolated to their room in residential care settings for long periods of time?

A few vignettes that I have been collecting. I have more than one example of each of these.

People with dementia may not be able to understand what is happening, why the virus is such a danger to them and their community, and they may have few personal resources to cope with being isolated.

Some believe that they are being punished or abandoned.

No matter how much you reassure or explain, they make sense of this isolation by feeling like they have done something wrong or they are unloved.

Some start losing touch with reality. They can become certain that family members who they haven't seen in months have died, or that the LTC staff are jailers or out to harm them. This amplifies their distress and fear.

Sitting in a room with little sensory or social stimulation, some start to hallucinate. They can be harmless hallucinations (interpreting their reflection in the mirror or window as a friendly roommate) or terrifying (rats or insects, strangers climbing in the window)

Finally, they become despondent. They lose the will to live. They lose their interest in eating, moving, and being with others. They become weak and withdrawn.

Our LTC residents have been suffering. We have a moral and ethical obligation to help them through this pandemic.

This includes funding for adequate staffing and resources to LTC to support them.

Congrats to @Docs4LTCJustice for your advocacy

If you are passionate about supporting the mental health of LTC residents, check out our Dementia Isolation Toolkit. http://www.dementiaisolationtoolkit.com