Senility, Becoming Childlike in Old Age

It is as though someone you have known your whole life is slowly stepping into another room. The eyes are still there, the voice, the laughter sometimes — but something in the middle has shifted. Memories swirl out of order. Conversations lose their thread. Things that happened an hour ago are gone; things from childhood are suddenly very close. And again and again something appears that many people initially find puzzling: a kind of childlike quality. Small moments of defiance. A need for protection, for closeness, for someone who knows everything. Sometimes a stubbornness that was not there before.

This text is written for both: for the person in whom this signal is showing itself — and for the family members who accompany them. Because what is happening here is not only a medical event. It is also an inner movement. A movement that has its own language, if one is willing to hear it.