Dementia By Jane Westerfield

The poem “Dementia”, written by Janel Westerfield, elucidates the story of a grandchild watching their grandmother go through the struggles of dementia. Dementia is a term for the loss of memory and other thinking abilities severe enough to affect everyday life. Over time, the disease seems to get worse and worse to the point where you do not know how to remember to do everyday things. Primarily, the elderly are the main ones affected by this disease. I haven’t personally had anyone in my family who suffered from dementia, but I can say that as a nursing student, I have seen many residents who suffer from this disease. It hurt having to watch so many residents be confused about where they were and what they were doing, and the smallest thing

She uses these concepts to create an idea for the audience to picture how her grandmother is suffering from her case of dementia and how it is affecting her mentally. She begins by using a statement written from her grandmother’s perspective of her mental state in stanza three, exclaiming, “‘I think my brain is cracking,’” (Westerfield, line 11) Conveying the mental image that Westerfield's grandmother is suffering badly in her mental state and how she is feeling in that very moment, she feels that her brain is cracking, by which she means that she cannot hold in any information and that all memories are being lost. Additionally, as the poem progresses, we see another addition of metaphorical language used with imagery. Again in stanza three, it is stated, “ Where hidden arteries are slowing down / into traffic jams of lost words and memories / ‘My head feels like mud.” (Westerfield, lines 13-15) Westerfield uses imagery again to paint the picture of her grandmother’s brain. This comes after the grandmother’s statement about her brain cracking and these lines give us a sense of what is going on inside her brain. Particularly, meaning overall that her brain is slowing down, the arteries within her brain are beginning to slow in which when it is stating lost words and memories, Westerfield is using this description to penetrate the idea to the audience that her grandmother is forgetting everything slowly, showing the effects that dementia can have on a person. Finally, within this stanza, the metaphorical language the grandmother uses to describe her brain as feeling like mud perfectly describes how many people with this disease feel. They lose a sense within themselves of how to remember basic things, they slowly lose their memories and begin to lose a sense of how to take care of themselves, and their brain just slowly stops comprehending simple tasks. In her final stanza, Westfield again uses imagery