Student Essay: How A Pleasanton Girl Scout Is Helping People With Dementia

The following essay was written by Dhanvi Shah, a freshman at Foothill High School. Shah is a Girl Scout working toward her Silver Award Project, and shared her essay about planning and executing brain exercise activities with residents with dementia at the Ivy Park at Pleasanton Memory Care facility. Some sentences have been lightly edited.

If you would like to submit a personal essay for publication, email Michael.wittner@patch.com.

My name is Dhanvi Shah and I am a freshman at Foothill High School, working to complete my Girl Scout Silver Award. My project revolves around people with dementia, and how we as a community can understand the disease better to destroy the stigma surrounding it.

I’ve always been interested in brain related diseases, psychology, and how they affect us, so I decided to dedicate my initiative to spread awareness and educate the public, as well as host art activities for the residents with dementia at Ivy Park Memory Care Pleasanton. Through brochures and art sessions, I got the opportunity to learn more about people with dementia and how they behave.

While I was researching information about dementia, I came across a few symptoms and how it affects the daily life for the patient and their family. These effects can include difficulty processing changes, personality shifts, confusion, and sometimes anger or agitation. When I got to meet the dementia residents, I was able to observe their behaviors and compare them to the research that I had done. I hosted canvas painting and tote bag coloring workshops and noticed many residents were engaging, while some were more distant. There was a wide range of reactions and behaviors to these workshops and it taught me that dementia does not apply to every person the same way. This highlighted just how important communication tailored to the patient actually is when trying to understand them.

Using my research and insight from the painting session, I created educational brochures that help inform the public about dementia and spread awareness to break the stigma around it. I distributed these in my neighborhood and also local community centers. They talk about what dementia is, the symptoms, effects, ways to destroy stigma, and tips on supporting patients.

I hope I can continue to volunteer at the Ivy Park Memory Care and host more art activities and brain exercises. In the future, I plan to scale my project so it can reach more people. We as a community must come together to learn about the reality behind diseases. So many people are not aware of what dementia really is, simply because we often don’t talk about the human stories behind the medical definition. By spreading awareness on brain diseases, those suffering can be heard and supported, and that is what community is all about.

Brochure: https://canva.link/14csowfansy4fms