Personas

Gretchen (80)

Gretchen is an 80 year old social lady who worked as a lecturer for a long span of 35 years of her life. She was a senior physics professor at a university in the netherlands. She was always surrounded by young adults and had the opportunity to talk with numerous people every day and attend various social gatherings. Her job was very demanding. Her regular day started at 5am where she meditated and exercised for 1.5h and then got ready to go to the university. Before going, she prepared lunch for herself and her family. She spent most of her day at the university and finally finished with her lectures and other work by 5pm. After work, she spent time with her colleagues or family. Gretchen has a very loving husband and they’ve been together since they were 20 years old. She also has 2 children, who are now 45 and 48 years old. She has 4 grandchildren who are 10, 12, 15, and 16 years old. She was very particular about maintaining a healthy lifestyle as she knew dementia was in her genetics as her mother suffered from the same. She tried to prevent it by being very active and being involved in activities which made her happy like going on trips with family which she really enjoyed.

She retired when she was 60 years old. After retiring, she continued with her healthy lifestyle. She went on daily walks, meditated and exercised with some music in the background. She also got involved in many NGO’s to keep herself occupied. But she missed being a lecturer and had some identity crisis. She was slightly stressed due to this, but since her husband was also retired, they always had each other for moral support. They got to do several activities together and time flew by quickly. They also went for several concerts since both of them were music fanatics. A few years later, her husband got into a very tragic accident and did not make it. This crushed Gretchen to the core and she fell into depression. Without her husband, she no longer felt like doing these activities alone and isolated herself. Her children constantly visited, but only after work, thus leaving her alone during the day. She felt alone and had a lot of spare time, which is very unlikely for her. This changed her as a person and her stress levels spiked. 

As time progressed, she was diagnosed with dementia at the age of 70. Due to the stress and old age, it progressed exponentially. Her children thought it was safe to put her in a care center since they could not always be with her. She also became very stubborn and constantly wanted to leave the house on her own. She has also gotten lost a couple of times, which is why her children immediately admitted her. She constantly felt the need to leave the care center. Sometimes wanting to go home to her husband or to the university. When the caretaker tries to stop her from going, she frequently gets very aggressive and uses verbal threats.

Robert (67)

Robert (67) lives in Delft with his son, daughter-in-law, and a grandchild (7). He loves to interact and spend time with his grandkid, for example, playing at their neighbourhood playground. He retired from an uneventful, day-filling office job last year. The summer after that, he got diagnosed with early staged dementia. Since the dementia is in the early stage, he can still perform most of his daily tasks like cooking, doing laundry and getting dressed. However, sometimes he gets unaware of his surroundings or the time of day and tries to leave the house. Just before he moved in with his son it was a regular occurrence for him to try to leave for work, because he simply has not gotten used to retired life. As a result, constant guidance is needed to prevent him from going out and getting hurt or lost. As both of his children are working and the grandkid goes to school, no one is at home to take care of him during the daytime. Hence his family decided to enrol him in a daycare centre. His children drop him off at a Dementia care centre at 8:00 in the morning and pick him up back at 18:00 while returning from work. When Robert is at the daycare centre, he misses his grandkid and attempts to leave the centre. Then there are days when he believes that his grandkid is missing and needs to go out to find him. When the caretakers notice his attempts to leave, they can convince him to stay inside because he will see his grandkid in the evening - though it is not uncommon for Robert to think it's evening already. Most of the time, Robert can understand and listen to his caretaker. On the days he is inconsolable, his caretaker calls his son to speak with him.  

Anna (35)

Anna is 35 years old. She has two children, which are 2 and 4 years old. She works as a caretaker at a care center for people with demetia. She generally likes her job, enjoying the conversations with the residents, but does somewhat rely on volunteers to keep her going. On the days where they are not helping around the center, she feels overwhelmed with the amount of people doing things they shouldn't. This, combined with having to take care of her young children, causes her to be under a lot of stress. This has even caused her to snap at some of the residents - something she's not proud of. She desperately wants an assistant to take care of some of the minor tasks around the center, because Anna, like her coworkers, just has too much on her plate at the moment. She thinks every person, regardless of age, personality or dementia, should be treated with respect, even if they don't respect her. However, because of the amount of people annoying her on busy days, she finds it hard to act on this idea.