In the past few months I had the opportunity to interview a few more people with dementia who left work because they were experiencing cognitive symptoms. Adding their comments to others who shared their experiences, exposes the challenges employees and employers face when confronted with an employee with dementia.
It is commonly recognized that dementia is often not diagnosed correctly especially in younger people. For example, patients suffering from depression, anxiety, and apathy are frequently told by their healthcare providers that it is due to probable stress at work or home. Because of the patient's younger age, dementia is not always considered as a cause of these symptoms. Now, it can be true that patients are stressed at work or at home, but that can certainly be a result of experiencing the symptoms of dementia.
Think about this for a second...if you were in your 30s, 40s or 50s, would would you consider feelings of being depressed, not having motivation to work or engage in other activities, having some increased anxiety as a result of having dementia? Neither would many doctors.
There is still a stigma attached to a dementia diagnosis and that is because we as a society are not educated enough to really understand what dementia really is. Researchers and healthcare providers still argue about dementia causes and treatments which does not give the general public enough information to grasp the impact of this disease. This is reflected in employers' responses to addressing an employee's challenges at work. As was told to me by several of my study participants, just because you have dementia, does not mean you cannot be productive at work. That work may look different than what you are currently doing, but you can still provide value to the employer,. depending on your current abilities. Employers are not recognizing this aspect of dementia. In fact, employers are not even offering (or thinking about offering) workplace accommodations or referring employees to available Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs).
The other factor to keep in mind is dementia does mean memory loss! There are many people with dementia whose long and short term memories are intact. Instead, these people have trouble organizing their thoughts, finding the right words, not understanding what they are reading, or following what someone is saying, etc. This is evidenced just by my study participants who can recall - with great accuracy by the way - everything that led up to their separation from their employer, conversations with their medical providers and families, etc.
The questions we should keep asking is what can employers do to help employees continue to work who disclose their dementia diagnosis? What can we as a society do differently to educate employers and employees on options available to both parties?
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