23/08/2025
I had to share this, please read ....
Posted by Michael Verde on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-verde/)
The future of dementia care isn’t about managing deficits—it’s about understanding how human beings actually connect and connecting with people with dementia accordingly.
Breakthrough neuroscience research reveals something remarkable: when two people are truly present with each other, their entire nervous systems literally synchronize.
Strong neural coupling dramatically improves communication and understanding. When this synchrony breaks down, meaningful connection vanishes entirely.
For dementia care, this changes everything…
“We’ve been approaching care with an overly individualistic model of cognition. Research shows that while cognitive processing occurs in individual brains, our thinking, feeling, and remembering are fundamentally social - deeply embedded in relationships in ways we often don’t recognize.”
The right brain regions that enable deep connection often remain intact during dementia progression.
This means someone with dementia isn’t a “broken brain” needing management—they’re a full partner in creating what emerges between two nervous systems.
The implications are profound:
• Staff become relationship partners, not just task-completers
• Emotional regulation happens through human connection, not just medication
• Dignity is maintained through shared capacity, not despite cognitive changes
• “Behavioral incidents” often signal failed connection, not character flaws
• Being “non-verbal” does not mean being beyond meaningful communication
While the aged care sector faces significant workforce retention challenges, organizations that incorporate the practices of deep connecting in a system of supportive attention will attract and retain staff in ways that task-focused, box-ticking models do not and never will.
The science is clear: healing AND meaning happens in the quality of connection BETWEEN people.
When we create genuine relationships with people who have dementia, we don’t just provide better care—we discover shared capacities that neither person could access alone.
We realize who WE are, together.
This isn’t about being “nicer.” This is not about personalizing care, as desirable as that may be.
It’s about recognizing that caring for a human being’s personhood includes—centrally, deeply, morally—being in a genuinely meaningful relationship with them.
The relational revolution in dementia care has begun.
Why?
Because human consciousness about what a person needs to feel like a person has outgrown the prevailing paradigm of care in the dementia field.
Managing behaviors is not enough.
The future that is now involves creating interpersonal environments in which residents and carers feel genuinely seen and heard.
The real question is which people and organizations will lead what is emerging and which will follow from behind?
