On World Alzheimer’s Day, I watched the SA 7.30 program, and a young girl and her family were interviewed about her experience of having been born with cleft palate, Mouth surgery helps girl sing. It is a remarkable story highlighting what can be achieved for the health of people living in Australia, of a family’s strength in ensuring their daughter received the very best chance at life, and how different the outcome would be if she had lived in a third world country.
What I found very interesting and which I think relates to PWD was the comment that voice is crucial to identity. If our voice is related to our identity, then if you are also losing your memory or ability to recall, and you are losing your voice, then the impact of both these things is even more significant. The Australasian Voice Summit states; “The human voice is an integral part of life as we know it. Imagine life without YOUR voice. This summit will bring together those who require and experience the human voice and its challenges, complexities and triumphs…”
Jeff Goins wrote in his weekly email, “That discomfort you feel when you experience beauty, that ache you feel, is good. It means you aren’t finished yet. That there is still great work in you the world has yet to see. That there is an intention to your imagination.” I felt this ache when I was told I had dementia, as so many dreams I still had felt as they would fade into oblivion, so much of my life might go unfinished. I suspect everyone who is told they have a terminal illness feels this, as a person’s world seems to shatter at least momentarily with such a diagnosis.
Voice is an exclusive fingerprint that expresses in unique ways both established and transitory features of a person’s identity: their genre, age, origin, individuality on one hand but also their intentions, emotions and interpersonal attitudes. How many things could be inferred from one’s voice? What does a voice hide? What does not having a voice imply for a person? Voice and identity seems inexorably linked to our personhood and self esteem, and for the person with dementia who is also troubled by memory loss may be an important piece in the puzzle to improving our experience.
