Ava Butler, an organizational development consultant and leadership coach, cared for her husband through Parkinson’s disease after his diagnosis in 2010 until his passing in 2017. She shares compassionate strategies for responding to hallucinations and redirecting difficult moments.
Transcript
I don’t think I would ignore it because that’s kind of rude. It’s kind of learning how to dance. You have to figure out what’s the right way.
So, for example, when Richard had hallucinations and as I said, they were not the nice 1960s kind. They were nasty. And so I would just say, “Oh, those guys, they’re not supposed to be in here.” And I’d open the door, for example, and say, “You, you. Out.”
And I’d just, like, open my arms and shoo them out the door. And I’d say, “Richard, do you see any more of them?” He’d say, “Yeah, there’s one over there.” OK, let’s go get them and shoo ‘em out the door.
So that’s just one example of what I would do. Sometimes you want to try something else, you can deflect, change the topic like, “Oh, there’s a basketball game on. Want to watch it?” You know, do something to distract. Like you do with kids.
You know, when your kid’s having a tantrum, you can sometimes pivot them by distracting them with something else. Doesn’t always work, but it can.
