The Professional Geriatric Care Manager’s Blog

Validation Therapy

In my earlier post I talked about the stigma associated with nursing homes.  Today I thought I would share with you the experience I had in providing sensitivity training to the staff of a local nursing home.  This particular nursing home is a facility that Distinctive Care makes referrals to, so we know they are a high quality facility.  The fact that the administrator (who has been with the facility for 8 years) and the Director of Nursing (who has been with the facility for 7 years) decided to bring this program in for the staff is telling with regard to the fact that they are dedicated to ensuring the best of care for the residents with dementia.

Validation Therapy is the brainchild of Naomi Feil, a social worker.  It is a process in which the caregiver doesn’t try to change the person she is caring for, but instead changes herself and actually enters the world of the person with dementia.  Reality Orientation, which is a technique used in the past, is no longer used when the resident with dementia is asking for her mother who has been deceased for more than 40 years because researchers have determined that this causes the resident to relive the painful memory.  Validation Therapy is not the same as “therapeutic lies” because, as Ms. Feil discovered, the person with dementia knows on some level that she is being lied to and this creates an environment of mistrust toward the caregiver.

Validation Therapy is used to validate the feeling behind the behavior the resident is displaying and to provide empathy and understanding, creating a feeling of trust and assisting the resident to resolve open issues they have in their lives before they die.  It is not something that one can master overnight, but the interest and openess of these caregivers to learn about this technique and to incorporate it into their practice was amazing.  The level of care and concern they showed during the inservice I provided was amazing.

They have promised me they are going to give it a try. A big part of Validation Therapy is asking questions of the resident to determine what the feeling behind the behavior is, as all behavior has meaning.  As I was leaving the facility I heard a caregiver ask a resident who was repeatedly asking for her mother if she felt scared.  The resident responded that she felt lost and scared.  The caregiver then asked what her mother used to do for her in the past when she felt lost and scared.  The resident replied that her mother used to rub her back and sing to her.  The last thing I noted as I was walking down the hallway was the caregiver rubbing the resident’s back.  She really understood what Validation Therapy is all about; I was very proud.

Distinctive Care Geriatric Care Management has many in-services available for staff in facilities throughout New Jersey.  If you are interested in bringing one of our programs to your staff please contact Pat Linard, our Director of Community Relations who will be able to provide you with a list of our current programs or let you know if we can customize a program based on your needs.  She can be reached in our Ridgewood office in Bergen County at 201-857-5283.