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P 7206 イギリスの認知症患者:ソーシャルワーカーのブログから

fighting monsters, 2010.11.04

イギリスのソーシャルワーカーのブログを読んでいます。
日本の介護の現場は、研究者の報告書ではなく、実際に介護の現場で働いている人のブログなどでわかりますね。
ほぼ毎日更新されているこのブログの11月4日の記事のタイトルは「船員」です・・・


Last week, I went to see an elderly man who has dementia. I’ve known him for a couple of years and have seen the progression of this dementia. Sometimes the progression happens at different rates. We’ve had a lot of time to chat, over the past couple of years though.
I visited him in the residential home in which he is now placed, where he said he never wanted to end up a couple of years ago.
Circumstances change though. No, it doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t feel comfortable but it is right for him now. He needs 24 hour care.

先週、作者が会った人は、認知症で、24時間のケアが必要な方です。記憶喪失が進行しています。


I switched the conversation back to something I was sure he would want to talk about. He had proudly served in the Royal Navy during the war and the immediate years afterwards.
‘So tell me, was it the Merchant Navy or the Royal Navy you were serving in?’, I said ‘I can’t quite remember’.
His eyes lit up. ‘The ROYAL Navy’, he gruffly confirmed.
‘Tell me about your time in the Navy’, I prompted him with my memories of some of the stories he had told me.
The conversation made him happy but it made me resolutely aware of the nature of memories and how they form who we are.

ここまでの箇所では、海軍の話題になると、よく覚えているというくだりです。


As I looked around his room in the residential care home which is filled with photographs of family, favourite paintings from home, I pondered at the brief echo of his life and sense of being that remains.
I picked up a photograph of him with his wife who died a couple of years ago. They had been married for over 40 years.
‘Who’s this?’ I said, first pointing at him.
‘That’s me’, he said, and he looked at me as if I had completely lost it. I smiled and nodded ‘of course it is’.
‘And who’s this woman?’ I said, pointing at his wife.
‘That’s Mary,’ he said, his voice softening. ‘She’s a fine woman. The best. I would have married her’. He stopped for a moment and it was as if his thoughts had caught up with him. He looked at me with stronger resolution and said quietly ‘I think I did’.
I looked at the fading picture of the couple who had raised a family together.
When the memories fly away, it is the family, friends and yes, even the grumpy social workers who will keep a hold of those memories and draw on them.
He thanked me as a I left and I thanked him.

そして次の箇所では、夫婦の写真を指すと、奥さんのメアリーを覚えています。素敵な女だったと。


‘Thank you’, I said and I meant it with all my heart. Knowing him and working with and alongside him has made me a richer person and has granted me the gift of deeper understanding of who he is but also who we are as people.
This is why I love my job and that’s why I despair at some of the changes in social work that push contact time to the minimum. This job is best and most effective when the relationships can build and grew and can be built over time.

作者は、お礼を言って別れた。時間をかけて分かり合えたときのソーシャルワーカーという仕事は素晴らしい。

*本文の3分の1ほどの長さです。
*このあと、5名の方から賛同と感謝の意を表すコメントが寄せられています。
*このブログの最近5ヶ月のアクセス 延数は18000件、イギリスが多いが、日本からのアクセスも42件あると記録されています。
by jpflege | 2010-11-04 22:17 | 025 dementia
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