Reaching Out, Helping Hands Helping Minds: A Hawai'ian Model for Aiding Friends Coping With Dementia

Reaching a certain age places one in a particular landscape in which dementia may be part of the scenery. This costly public health problem is personally devastating not only for dementia sufferers but for their surrounding interpersonal circle, which is not limited to immediate family. Indeed, friends often become the family you choose; their issues become, at some level, shared issues. In this setting the impulse of a life scientist to offer knowledgeable assistance to a friend fits naturally into a cornerstone of culture in present-day Hawai'i for mobilizing relevant aid from all corners. This model, called "forming a hui", comprises a network of not only formal professional relationships but potentially even more importantly, the informal ones: friendships, serendipitous contacts, someone who knows someone who knows someone, the essence of connectedness on behalf of friends coping with dementia. Storytelling as a means of communication holds a place of prominence in Hawai'ian culture; exchange of ideas, as well as reminiscence, is called "talk story." In this article, lives now built around coping with dementia are woven into a story fabric as into a Hawai'ian quilt.