On our way out to Colorado, as we didn't know we were going there, we stopped in the Stoughton/Madison area, and I re-employed myself as a nurse assistant at Skaalen Home where I'd previously worked for my mom. The newest procedure for dementia patients, I found out, was some kind of reality therapy. If the patient claims it's say, 1910 and he/she needs to go find her/his mother, you don't just let that go, you'd say, "No, your mother is dead, and it's day, month, 1977 (when it was 1977). But searching my memory banks, I remember there was a cute housekeeper with an infectious laugh, who watched an old farmer reaching several times toward the floor. She'd address him by name, encouraging him to "plant that corn" (giggle). It didn't occur to me until now that encouraging him to think he was out in the field years ago was contrary to the new "reality" approach and could unravel our intentions.
