Masterful storytelling and a solution that one can imagine expanding into other venues with wondrous results.

Please create a PayPal contribution link in your support page. I will donate.

An uplifting story with a problem motivating a creative solution. The welcome level of creativity "escaped" the customary logic of budgeting security improvements. Truly elegant!

Applause for the comment that lying" devoid of selfish benefit, may perhaps be more like caring consideration . . . no different than the comfort offered a distressed child.

My first time listening to Radiolab. A real find! The segment brought up memories of my grandmother with Alzheimers', the nursing home care she got, and to the terrible plight of Alzheimers' patients. Bravo for this sensitive and caring Senior Center in Germany. Of paramount importance is funding for research to eradicate this terrible disease.

This was really beautiful and thoughtful. I love the fact that they will allow people to do the things that they wanted to do...it's cruel to imprison anyone especially someone so innocent.

Beautiful.. Comfort in knowing there is a way home.

I worked on a locked wing of a nursing home many years ago. I had several experiences which were utterly amazing to me.In one example three residents would sit outside in the hallway next to each other every day after dinner.They would all speak,but not to each other. I was also in choir at the time where I had been working on old jazz songs,from the 30's and40's. I started to sing "Ain't Misbehaving".These ladies joined right in.We sang the entire song.Together,present in that moment,with lyrics and melody. I also had a gentleman ,who each night refused to go to bed unless he had his Scotch.As alcohol was not allowed in the facility. I filled a dixie cup with water and gave it to him,"Here's your Scotch,Sir." He sipped it slowly then went to bed, with no problems. I,however,was reprimanded for having told him that the water was Scotch...I really felt he was relieved when I had though..to him it was the fulfillment of his routine.Something he missed from his life.

Awaiting a tangible bus is itself a journey of the mind.

This story moved me.

This form of therapy would benefit others. I believe such a bus stop would be rejuvenating for me on a busy day, to enjoy a shared story with a stranger on the bus stop bench. The bus stop is a way of going forward with your planed schedule, while being forced to stop and be retrospective. The bus stop is perhaps a perfect transition.

The film Forest Gump is framed by such a bus stop, where the bus is not used, indeed waved off, to make room for the continuation of the character narrative.

Bird chirping and the use of silence were especially useful in this podcast.

I can only hope that when I am aged, and if suffering from dementia, that I will be as well cared for, with kindness and patience, and with a bus stop outside my door.

Thank you.

Reminds me when my mother was able to exit unknown form her care facility. After several hours of panic searching around outside we began searching all the rooms in her care facility only to find her sound asleep in an adjacent ber in one of the other male guest's bedroom. It was a funny happy ending

Beautiful.

I cried. This does not happen easily.

Wonderful story about a wonderful idea. I wonder, though, how we might apply this to dementia care residents in a rural setting? I work on a Special Care Unit in a small town in Idaho, and our residents tend to be retired farm folk from even smaller towns. A bus stop means nothing to them. They've always traveled by truck or car. I wonder how we might given them this same sense of possibility and movement, which is why they wander. Thoughts welcome!

General comment: I'm someone who doesn't like Wired magazine - a little too "modern"? for me. Almost can't tell what's an ad and what's an article.

Radiolab is SO unlike any other talk show, spoken segments all chopped and interleaved, and etc, you'd THINK I might dislike it.

But I LOVE the format, the "production" adds SO much to the already superb topics, guests, hosts, etc etc.

SO along comes bus stop. I'm listening to the podcast, and you got to the person sitting waiting for the bus.

THEN you "muted" - Silence. After about 4 seconds I "mildly" thought "OK, I got it", but when you went on - at about 8 seconds, I broke out into this huge grin, -- holy cow, what a beautiful use of silence for its conveying a message.

Keep up the excellent work!

And yes, of COURSE I "contribute" $$.

Wish everyone did!

I will miss Lulu!

So many wonderful things about this story: the solution didn't come from "expert", but from a member of the community; the experts (i.e., director)was open to suggestions and tried the idea; and the staff became able to accept the worries of the patients on their own terms, letting them bake at two in the morning, or catch a non-existent bus, or do whatever they urgently had to do. No drugs, no restraints. Wonderful

As usual this is another RadioLab gem. I would like to contribute but my desire is similar to so many others who wish to remain anonomous. I suggest setting up a text-to-donate number. One could text RADIOLAB to some number and $10 would be billed to the phone account.

Just had to add my praise for this segment. What a touching story and wonderful solution to a tricky situation. I have so much love and respect for the people who work in those types of facilities, bless them.

it is this type of simple ingenuity that the healthcare reformers should heed. GUYS, i think you have a new category here.

I've been grappling with the appalling circumstances my mother-in-law endures, afflicted with Alzheimer's disease and confined to what we call care here in America. I have thought I would rather end myself than suffer such an end. This story offers some hope of a less desperate way of coping with dementia. I can only hope that if I am ever so afflicted that I have the blessing of such thoughtful and caring people as those caregivers in Germany. If that were so, I would not fear the decline so.

This was really such a beautiful story. My mother who had dementia found her way to a bus stop one day which was when we needed to change her level of care. The bus stop in this story provides a place to relax, regroup, and soothe one's mind. I was touched how the bus stop has helped the staff respond to other patients in increasingly compassionate ways. I'm a new listener and already a devoted fan.

This is great. Thank you for this great post. I hope this standard of care can be implemented elsewhere.

I think we all need a bus stop of our own...a place to gather your thoughts and become centered...

Wonderful story...as always, well told and produced by Radio Lab. The people involved have developed a simple solution, one where the problem is actually the curx of the solution. One that is ultimately kind-hearted, and preserves the dignity of their patients.

This was wonderful (all radio lab is but this one in particular). I'd be the bus stop idea is used more than we realize in other aspects of life that do not involve dementia patients. Also, I bet this would work better in Europe than in the US. Everyone would be looking for their car.

A wonderful story! And an even better illustration of how innovative thinking can generate a more human and human response. Given the alternatives open to the staff this is simply brilliant! I have included it in our blog

regards

You guys nail another one! Congrats on helping find compassion and dignity in the brutal world of fading memories.

Cristobal-
the spelling is "G-O-E-B-E-L," though as is evident I can offer you no suggestions on pronunciation!

Gubel.
But with an umlaut over the U.

Love when video collides in 3D!

The Bus Stop is absolutely not a lie. I did something similar once when my mother-in-law started wandering. She had worked as administrative assistant for an Admiral at NOAA and insisted that he had called and wanted her to deliver some papers, shoving a weird assortment of stuff into a purse and taking off at a fast walk. After thinking a bit, I realized the best way to help her was to enter her world. So I ran after her and told her that he had called back and said never mind, he didn't need the papers until tomorrow. So she was relieved and came back home and had her dinner and went to bed.

When people enter this phase of Alzheimer's they are reliving parts of their past for some reason; and entering their world allows them to do so until the moment has passed. It is far better for them than attempting to force them to accept a world that they cannot accept at the time.

This is a beautifully crafted story expertly rendered for radio. Once again, the Rad-Lab comes through with atomic force - great job, Lulu Miller!

A simple but wonderful solution to a real problem.

This audio sends a good message to Alzheimer's caregivers. Look for simple solutions to problems caused by erratic Alzheimer's behaviors.

Great story and idea. I've had a couple of people in my life that this happened to. At time, they lived in their own world. Other times, they surprised me by how much they remembered. I always found it better to let them think and remember as they wish. It always reverts back to now in a short while.

No need to throw Lulu under the bus (pun?) for choosing "Bus Stop" by the Fatback Band as closing music. The track was immediately added to my collection. Liked it.

I would like to know the spelling of the hard-to-pronounce German name (Goerble?) It sounds like an easy mistake that I personally would like to avoid. Great story!

Hey Scott, I had the same feeling about the bus stop being called a lie (though it doesn't stop me from loving Lulu's story).

I wrote up a brief commentary on that topic from this Short if you're interested or would like to comment on if it's what you're thinking too: http://www.thoughtskipper.com/2010/03/so-what-if-cake-is-lie.html

Good to be hearing Lulu's stories again!

Wonderful tale. And I look forward to hearing more stories from Lulu

Alison Szewczyk -- the podcast you're looking for is the one entitled "Morality". Just jump to the home page for the Radiolab website and you'll be able to stream it directly from here, or DL it in iTunes. One of my favorites, and one I typically use to get others hooked on this show!

Love this! My grandma has just relocated to assisted living- cause of Dementia... I wish there was a bus stop there for her... Thank you so much for such a wonderful short! Radiolab is amazing!

This is great! As an audio engineer and a resident of Düsseldorf living in Los Angeles, I think this is a great story and a wonderfully produced podcast. Great sense of playing with language and storytelling!

I don't really consider the bus stop to be a lie. With a lie there is an intent to deceive in order to benefit the liar by severing the person being lied to from reality long enough to obtain some benefit.
With the bus stop, the person allegedly being lied to is in a state of delusion or untruth. The staff are trying to bring the disturbed residents back from their delusion in as harmless a way as possible.
The bus top is a bridge between two worlds: the delusional world of the resident and the real word. It is a way to meet the suffering victim where they are and gently marshal them back into the shared world of reality.
This is the best episode of Radiolab I have heard to date!

Absolutely lovely. I will include this link in our April, 2010 newsletter
(http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~aging/ResourcesinAging.html)
Diane Driver, Resource Specialist
Center on Aging
University of California, Berkeley

How can I find that recent Radio Lab about how the two sides of the brain fight with each other in response to tough ethical questions. The one where they were looking at the brain activity via brain scans while people tried to answer the quections?

Great story! I found it particularly relevant because my dad is an activities director at my great-grandmother's retirement home. He has told me countless stories about people running off and staff members struggling to find them. It's an extremely sad situation that really affects the staff, including my dad.

This is a wonderfully inventive way of dealing with this problem. Thanks for the inspiring story, RadioLab.

Amazing! Not only is the program being discussed here incredibly thought-provoking, but the storytelling in this podcast is beautiful-the way the nature sounds punched in so suddenly...I was, in those moments, no longer sitting at my crowded desk near Canal Street in Manhattan, but instead instantly transported to find myself sitting on the most calm, peaceful, reflective bench my mind could conjure, understanding perfectly the benefits that the bus stop affords its patients. Another home run Lulu!

I loved this story and the idea of the bus stop. It was, and is, a brilliant idea--it made me think about the urgency that can be felt to go somewhere and the satisfaction when that urgency is met. I think it's a wonderful living metaphor for something that everyone wants in life--that feeling of going somewhere. Perhaps parents of raging adolescents should consider this idea. Thank you for a wonderful, life-affirming story.

Today I listened to your wonderful podcast story about the bus stop. Having had parents who suffered from dementia I found your story touching. The story inspired me to follow your suggestion to send some money. I went to the site (for the first time) hoping to find a PayPal donation button. If it is there, I missed it. Instead, it looks like your fund raising folks want a relationship with me. I'm not looking for a relationship, I just want to send a bit of money. Is there a way to do that without filling in pages of forms? Maybe a PayPal button would get you more money from people like me who are not looking for a long term commitment at the moment.

Nice short! I think Lulu is swell.

Great short! I think the bus stop idea is a beautiful method of mitigating a widespread fear of assisted living. I will share this with the many others who have late-onset Alzheimer's and dementia in their family.

However, the bus stop is not really a lie, contrary to Lulu and Jad's stated assumption. No one deliberately tells the seniors to wait at the bench, or that something is going to happen there. We think of it as a lie because, to us, the important part is our expectations about the bus: when it comes and where it goes. It's a lie to have a bench and a sign marking a bus stop if you deceive me into not getting home from work on time.

For the seniors, the important part is only that a bus will (probably) come. They have a sense of urgency or deep anxiety that needs to be resolved, and the bus stop is a symbolic destination signaling that they've begun to solve the problem by taking action. They see a familiar roadside bench that symbolizes "going places" without actually going anyplace. While you're waiting for the bus, that's as fast and as far as you can go; you have to wait because you can't control the bus and nothing you do matters until it arrives, so you might as well relax.

The bench and the sign are first and foremost physical truths, and lies only insofar as our superficial expectation. This bench relaxes anxious minds as much as bodies. A burden is lifted because there's no sense worrying until the bus comes, so a forgetful mind easily ambles along to enjoy the beautiful outdoors for a while.

I guess to put it another way, the bus stop is a "truth" in the patient's dream-world that the nurse and Lulu describe. I hope this kind of remedial thinking catches on.

-Skip

I think this fits in there with the best Radiolab segments there. It made me start to cry. I have had older relatives with dimentia and some who simply had lost so much of their senses that they were always in a fuzz. It's sad to see someone aging and slowly losing their mind that way. I'm glad to hear of this one small way people were able to help them.

The bus stop is a lovely idea. In the Oscar Winning clay-mation movie "Harvey Krumpet" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382734/), the old people's home had a bus stop installed inside the grounds - a lovely movie about aging.