Alycia Martel – Dementia Grief and Losing a Loved One

In this podcast, Alicia Martel, an end-of-life specialist, deaf doula, and caregiver coach, discusses the challenges of telling a person with dementia about the death of a loved one. She shares her personal experience of telling her father, who has a slow progressing form of dementia, about the death of his goddaughter. Alicia highlights the difficulty in delivering bad news to someone with dementia as they might not remember it in the long run. She explains how the person's emotional memory and response should be taken into consideration while approaching loss and grief. Diane Carbo, the host, adds that caring for a person with dementia during such a time can be emotionally challenging as the caregiver is already grieving the loss of the loved one and the slow or rapid loss of the person with dementia. The conversation ends with suggestions on how to comfort and provide solace to the person with dementia while meeting the caregiver's needs as well.