The silent need for connection
If we understand this and treat those affected with dementia as fully human, with minds of their own who are entitled to the full respect of others, then perhaps they can live a full and meaningful life. More importantly, they can still share their lives with us.
Jan 26, 2025

Dancing with Dementia - Dr Cecilia Chan
Happy New Year 2025! I’m sure your social media feed, like mine, was overflowing with New Year wishes at the start of the year. Have you ever stopped to wonder why social media is so popular? Could it be that, at its core, it fulfils a basic human desire — the need to connect, belong, and be part of a group or community?
Countless studies illustrate, from the smallest rodents to us humans, that our social environment profoundly shapes us and that we suffer immensely when our social bonds are affected or severed. I am sure you can recall your experiences during the global lockdown. We are wired to be social. We are driven by intrinsic motivations to stay connected with other humans. This is our authentic nature. Most of the time we connect through the medium of language.
However, what happens when one of us can no longer verbalise? Or when we act in ways that may not suit the norms of behaviours set by us, the majority? This is very common in the world of dementia, especially when one loses the ability to use language to communicate. I wonder why we often assume that when people cannot speak, they have nothing to say. Let us pause to reflect on this absurdity. Being unable to speak is not the same as not having anything to say. Just because someone is unable to articulate what he or she wants, we overlook their experience in favour of ours. Often, we jump to the conclusion (quite wrongly in most cases), that their needs and feelings are the same as ours because we have no other guidelines than our interpretation of their response, or even lack of it.
A close friend of mine (whom I will call Adam) is craving human connection as he gets visibility excited and will launch into a series of what we often label as “incoherent” talk or “gibberish”. Usually, Adam is left alone in the house with no human interaction and connections other than basic physical needs like food and personal care. Adam, who had been supplying seafood to restaurant operators all his life is very vibrant, friendly, and enjoys human connection. Dementia affected his language comprehension and production, but not his need to connect. He became more and more frustrated and angry and began to demonstrate his frustrations physically and emotionally.
It was surprising that when my team began to connect with him daily, meeting his most fundamental needs as a human being, he began to flourish to his real self. Stepping into Adam’s world enabled us to explore ourselves as well as Adam and helped us reach further into our world and meanings, providing us with deeper reflections of what meanings it might have for him. My team realises that to truly know another person and be open to who they are, we must initially know and be open to ourselves. It is not static but rather, a fluid and organic relationship between two communicating partners where walls of power, superiorityinferiority/ normal-abnormal must be demolished so that, learning about oneself and others and connecting, are central and authentic.
My personal experience of the world of dementia raised many crucial questions about the nature of self and personhood. I suspect that no other condition is experienced in isolation as dementia embodies this. It demands a profound question about what it is to be human and how we are defined as people. Being in this unique world forces me to recognise my limitations and my vulnerability. It often forces me to open parts of me that I prefer to be hidden, exposing my vulnerability as a human being. Initially, it feels too tender, too raw, too frightening. How can I turn myself inside out so that my inner world, the place where I feel, connects with the space of my friends living with brain changes such as dementia?
Perhaps we have to move from the model of merely ‘caring’, to one of partnership so that the one we are caring for no longer feels himself or herself to be an object to whom life happens as a kaleidoscope of barely related events, but as a valued individual whose feelings and needs are sought out and validated.
If we understand this and treat those affected with dementia as fully human, with minds of their own who are entitled to the full respect of others, then perhaps they can live a full and meaningful life. More importantly, they can still share their lives with us.
For what they do often lose is their social self. Anyone’s social self depends on its existence on being recognised by other social beings. What people say to us, and how they behave towards us, confirms our role as their parent, neighbour, teacher, student, colleague, etc. How they relate to us also shows our value in that role, confirming that we are, for instance, a much-loved parent, or merely a body to be taken care of.
If we ignore those living with dementia, talk about them as if they weren’t there, and assume they are the living dead, we are telling them that they no longer have a valid social identity in our eyes.
…if we listen attentively we shall hear a faint flutter of wings, the gentle stirring of life and hope. – Camus (1960)
(Dr Cecilia Chan is a Gerontologist and Dementia Advocate and Activist. She can be contacted via WhatsApp 013-4384388.)
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