The Living Center - compassion

A hard picture, perhaps, but not a set up one. This is a picture of an Althiemer's patient, her daughter and a volunteer.
The picture was taken during a Living Center outing to String Lake for a summer picnic. The setting was, as you might imagine, sparking water, huge evergreens, picnic tables, the smell of hamburgers on the grill and the mountains rising across the lake in grandeur.
The daugther had pushed her mom about in her wheel chair on the picnic trails, hoping, trusting, I am sure, that there might be some recognition and experience of the setting. The volunteer was simply sitting next to the mother making an effort to communicate by touch.
I get the impression that the effort to connect, somehow, in a positive way with patients like the mother here is a constant one at this facility.