To the Editor:
Re “When Dementia Has a Seat at the Table,” by Patti Davis (Opinion guest essay, Dec. 24):
As a spiritual care professional at Fraser Health working with people living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias in a long-term care home, I’m grateful for this essay by Ms. Davis. It puts into plain language what many families learn only through painful trial and error: People with dementia may not understand why everyone has gathered or track the “content,” but they do pick up “the emotional currents” around the table.
In my practice, I also notice that some families gradually stop visiting — not because their love for their family members is gone, but because they feel disconnected from them. When conversation becomes difficult, they assume their loved one no longer recognizes them, and that the visit “doesn’t matter.” But reduced speech does not mean reduced feeling.
Many residents communicate emotion through facial expression, body language, restlessness, tears, a softened gaze or reaching for a hand. Even when they cannot label what they feel, they are still experiencing something in the presence of the people who matter to them.
The essay offers wise guidance: Assume that what “radiates from you is sinking into them, and adjust accordingly.” If families take that seriously, visits can shift from performance (“Say my name; remember this”) to presence (“I’m here; you’re safe; you’re loved”).
Nasir Zaidi Surrey, British Columbia
To the Editor:
Thanks to Patti Davis for affirming that persons with dementia may lose memories or lose abilities, but will not lose their personhood until their last breath.
As Ms. Davis observed, even a person who has lost the ability to talk, walk or hold a fork is still there, still taking it in and still able to respond, albeit without spoken words. Here’s how I know:
My wordless, wheelchair-bound wife was clearly near the end of her 17-year dementia journey as we sat together, listening to a CD of her favorite group, the Temptations. Then a tune from our long-ago wedding came on, “My Girl.” With a great deal of effort, my wife lifted her arm, reached for my hand, grasped it and squeezed gently. Then she sent me her faintest, her sweetest, her last smile.
My sweetheart, my best friend of 49 years, was still there. And a few hours later, she wasn’t. She’d completed her long journey, showing us that persons with dementia are exactly that — persons.
Jim Mangi Saline, Mich. The writer established Dementia Friendly Saline, a nonprofit that helps persons with dementia live with less difficulty and more dignity.
Guardrails for A.I. to Protect Kids
To the Editor:
Senator Amy Klobuchar’s warning about unregulated A.I. (“State A.I. Laws Keep Us Safe. Trump’s Next Move Could Upend That,” Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Dec. 9) correctly sounds the alarm on the damage that will be done to people if the government steps back from its duty to protect privacy, mental health and more in a rapidly changing technology landscape. The toll of this technology on children and youth is an urgent call to action.
Children and youth are paying a steep price as A.I. chatbots and social platforms chase engagement. The facts are clear: 1) some A.I. chatbots engage in sociopathic patterns; and 2) curated social media feeds are exacerbating anxiety, depression and social isolation among children and teenagers (and adults).
This isn’t an argument against technology. A.I. holds extraordinary promise. For that promise to be realized, ethical guardrails grounded in human well-being, not market dominance or political expedience, are necessary.
Child well-being must become a guiding principle — not an afterthought — in A.I. governance.
Shakti Belway Oakland, Calif. The writer is executive director of the National Center for Youth Law.
A Wealth Tax Benefits the Rich, Too
To the Editor:
Re “Wealth Tax Is Floated; Rich Eye Exit” (Business, Dec. 29):
California’s wealth tax is not something that should drive billionaires from the state — it’s what enabled them to become ultrawealthy in the first place. Public investments in education, infrastructure and research created the conditions that made their fortunes possible.
Even with a 5 percent wealth tax, they would still retain more money than they — or generations of their families — could ever spend. This is not confiscation; it’s a modest contribution from those who have benefited most.
What’s puzzling is their failure to recognize that these taxes would be reinvested in the very economy that made their wealth possible — strengthening the state in ways that ultimately make everyone, including the ultrawealthy, even richer.
Michael Fasman San Francisco
The post Living With Dementia, but ‘Still There’ appeared first on New York Times.
