hypnotherapy and dementia

I'm music therapist and client centered therapist and work since 5 years with people with dementia. Since I read some books about Erickon and his way of doing hypnosis, I wondered if hypnotic techniques would be useful to reach this very difficult group of people. The way of intervening depends on the stage of dementia:

There are 3 stages of dementia:
Based on the principles of pré-therapy and NLP, Erickson (pacing and leading) I have developed a technique to make contact with people in the severe stage of dementia: I seak for the mayor patterns of their behavior and I make music improvisations on that (in a subtle way). My voice is an important instrument but I use also piano and guitar (f.i.) to create a safe and containing atmosphere. It's a very hard job, tiring, but there are moments of (little and basic) contact and reaction.

The first and second stage of dementia demands another way of handling: these people can still talk with you, they can still think but they feel that there is always something missing. In the second stage of dementia they get the more and more delusions and hallucinations and also stereotypic behavior.

Sometimes (most of the time) these people suffer a lot. They react by being anxious, defensive (to the nurse), hostile, claiming other people, being impulsive, depressive, ...

It is very difficult to change their mood they are in. They live in their own world and behave in a very rigid way. I was wondering if hypnosis could be useful to reach these people and change their world they live in (f.e. change the scheme of associations they are captured in) or reach their unconscious and give them helping suggestions... If so, it would be a mayor help for this group of people!

A few other questions:
1. Which are the limits of hypnotherapy? F.e., can you work with people in coma, with brain injury, anterograde amnesia,...? What are the possibilities, the results?

2. Can you bring a person into hypnosis when he is not focused on you, when he is angry, or when he doesn't want to be in contact whith you?

3. Are people that suffer of delusions or people with stereotypic behavior already in a state of trance? (I think they do).

4. Are there people who have experience whith dementia and hypnotherapy? Are there publications about that?

Thank you very much for taking the time of responding!! (and excuse me for my bad English)

Stijn Leijssen

Replies:

Re:hypnotherapy and dementia, by Steve Lankton, 07/04/01 Re:hypnotherapy and dementia, by Stijn Leijssen, 12/26/01 Re:hypnotherapy and dementia, by Steve Lankton, 12/29/01

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