The DAWN Method® is the strength-based approach to dementia care. We are now hearing more about the value of person-centered dementia care, and a strength-based approach in aged care—for good reason. It’s not possible to provide person-centered care unless we understand what a person can do, what their strengths are. To proactively support someone’s emotional needs when they are experiencing dementia or Alzheimer’s, we need to provide strength based care.
When we understand how to work with the cognitive changes dementia causes, we can minimize the stress and loss that otherwise accompany it. The DAWN Method will help you not only lower your stress as a caregiver, but maximize wellbeing for both you and your loved one.
What is a strength-based approach to dementia care?
The DAWN Method is person-centered and habilitative in its approach, but goes further. Rather than suggest ways to respond once a difficult situation arises, it teaches care partners and families how to recognize and meet the emotional needs that cause people to react with stress behaviors. It teaches them how to help people who are experiencing dementia regain a sense of security, not just provide for their wellbeing needs. In other words, the DAWN Method equips care partners to be proactive and strength based in their approach.
The DAWN Method is also different in that it incorporates research and knowledge from the fields of psychology, philosophy, linguistics and mindfulness, not just neurology and medicine. Dementia affects not only our memory skills, but also our ability to use thinking, language and attention skills. Those changes affect our relationships, our ability to do tasks and keep ourselves safe, and our ability to understand what’s happening around us. Medical knowledge alone isn’t enough for care partners to recognize and support the emotional needs that appear when someone’s ability to function changes in all areas of life.
The DAWN Method was created by Judy Cornish, who put aside her career to spend a decade working with people who were living with dementia at home, often with no family nearby. From them, she learned what helps and what doesn’t, and was able to test what she learned with numerous clients over the years. Hers was a unique experience: to see what dementia looks like when someone is supported at home proactively. Dementia looks very different after the person fails at home and is moved into group care (one trauma followed by another).
What dementia looks like from an experiential perspective
There are many places to learn about dementia, but if we love someone who’s experiencing it, what really helps is learning how to work with it. Dementia changes our ability to function, so it causes predictable and expectable emotional reactions. Our behaviors change because of these emotional reactions, not because they are symptoms of disease.
We’ve been using the medical model to approach the problems dementia presents, but not successfully, because there’s a better model. The model we use to solve a problem determines what solutions are available; when we use the wrong model, the solutions don’t work.
The medical model is designed to deliver treatments and cures, yet there is no cure for those who are currently experiencing dementia. The logical response is then to use an experiential model—the model for providing care: we turn our attention to accommodating the person’s changing skills and emotional needs. When we know how to support the person in those two areas, we are equipped to work with dementia: accepting the person as they are and changing the environment so they can thrive. This is care.
Using the experiential model, it’s easier to see an overall pattern to the changes that dementia brings. We can see that it takes away our rational thinking skills but not our intuitive thinking skills; it takes away our remembering self but not our experiential self; and it takes away our ability to manage our own attention, but not our ability to enjoy beauty and companionship in the present.
These changes in our abilities can’t help but cause us frustration, embarrassment and distress. We need more and more help, even though life has taught us that we need to know what’s going on and be able to care for ourselves to be safe. Our desire for dignity and autonomy continues, although our ability to care for ourselves fades. We need understanding and support from our companions.
Meeting the emotional needs caused by dementia
Dementia causes stress. Finding yourself unable to do things you used to do easily is frustrating and embarrassing, but finding yourself unable to make sense of what’s going on around you is deeply distressing. What we used to refer to as “dementia-related behaviors” are now being recognized for what they are: human stress responses. We shouldn’t be surprised that people experiencing dementia often react in ways that show they are stressed. The DAWN Method teaches family members and care partners ways to meet their loved ones’ emotional needs proactively to avoid conflict and misunderstandings.
Using the DAWN Method, we can keep our loved ones at home longer. Staying at home longer means not only a higher quality of life, but also less expense—for families and for governments.
What is dementia?
Dementia causes the loss of memory skills, the loss of rational thinking skills, and loss of the ability to direct and manage our own attention. This impairment is progressive. Dementia is a condition, not a disease, although it can be the result of a number of diseases (such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and heart disease). People experiencing dementia are often unable to comprehend that they are becoming impaired, so they cannot understand why they would need help. This is another condition—something called anosognosia—which often accompanies the experience of dementia.
Next steps…
- Are you a family? Go to our free “Guide to caring for someone with dementia at home.”
- Are you a professional caregiver? Check out the Dementia Care Specialist Certification course.
- Are you an agency or a facility? Explore our DAWN dementia caregiver training options for caregivers and staff.
FAQs about dementia and person-centered dementia care
What is dementia? And what causes dementia?
Dementia brings memory loss and progressive cognitive impairment. It is not a disease itself, although it can be the result of a number of diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, alcoholism, and cardiovascular disease. People experiencing dementia are often unable to be unaware that they are impaired, so cannot understand that they need help. This condition is called anosognosia, and often occurs with dementia.
What is strength-based, person-centered care for dementia?
A strength based approach to dementia care is care that provides assistance for what a person can no longer do while working with the skills they have and will retain. The opposite of care is treatment, which focuses on dementia as a disease and utilizing treatments or medications to try to turn them back into who they once were. People who are experiencing dementia lose the ability to access the past (their memory skills) but none of the skills needed to enjoy the present. They lose their rational thinking tools (understanding explanations and making sense of information), but not their primary thinking skills: intuitive thought. That’s good news, because it’s intuitive thought that lets us enjoy the good things in life, including companionship, pets, beauty and music. When our companions and caregivers know what we can and can’t do, they can stop embarrassing and frustrating us, and we both enjoy less stress. That’s what makes the DAWN Method different: it teaches families how to recognize the strengths in dementia so they can be proactive in planning care and minimize stress and expense.
