Do not feel like a failure or get upset or angry if strategies to enhance memory like WRAP do not work with someone who has dementia. The memory capacity changes with time of day and day to day. It may work one day and not another. Keep trying and celebrate the successes as they come.
The individual with dementia has a lifelong history of being with other humans in work and play. Just because they are not able to remember current things, does not mean that long-term memory is not still there. Non-verbal communication and soft verbal skills like the tone and pitch of voice may still be intact in the person with dementia.
What this means is that the individual with dementia can still hear and sense the emotion in your voice. They can feel a physical and emotional tension in a touch. They are still aware of frustration. At some level, they know when they are with someone who is safe. This is knowledge learned from a lifetime of experience living in a world of humans.
If you are a caregiver and you get frustrated, angry and upset, you are normal. The person you are caring for looks like your parent, friend or spouse of decades, but they are not able to fulfill that role any longer due to their disease. We each have roles in our lives as mother, father, spouse or friend. Those of us that are caregivers often expect more than our loved one can give. That inability to resolve the loss of our companion is in itself a loss. Now we must deal with the physical and emotional changes that we see.
The person with dementia cannot come to your emotional and functional place so you must go to theirs. If you are struggling to come to terms with this, please contact me for more information.