ROBBINS NEST ALLIANCE NEWSLETTER — ISSUE 8

FROM THE NEST

ROB'S CORNER

Heather has this thing she says now. Did you close the loop?

It started because I would go do something and not finish it. Get the mail and leave the envelopes on the counter. Start something in the yard and leave the tools out. Make food and forget to put anything away.

I was not trying to leave a mess. I just got to a certain point and the next step did not come.

We talked about it together and came up with closing the loop. It works better for me than being told I left something unfinished. It is a reminder I can hear without feeling like I did something wrong.

Did you close the loop. That is all she has to say.

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HEATHER'S TRANSLATION

I want to be clear that this did not come from a book or a therapist or a caregiver tip list. It came from a conversation Rob and I had where we were both trying to solve the same problem without making each other feel bad.

For a long time I used a different version. When he would walk away from something unfinished I would say something like, did you walk off the green before you finished the hole? Because golf is the thing he loves most and he would never leave a hole unfinished on a course. But that framing did not stick the way I hoped.

Closing the loop came out of a later conversation. We were talking about how everything we do has a natural endpoint. You make cereal, you eat it, you put the bowl in the dishwasher and the milk back in the refrigerator. That is the loop. You do laundry, you move it to the dryer, you fold it, you put it away. Loop closed. You check the mail, you sort it, you deal with what needs dealing with, and the junk goes in the recycling. Closed.

The problem is not that Rob is lazy or careless. The part of his brain that sequences tasks and holds the endpoint in memory while completing the middle steps is not working reliably anymore. He gets to a certain point and the thread breaks. The next step simply does not come.

Closing the loop gives us shared language for it. It is not an accusation. It is a question we both own. Sometimes I say it when I notice something incomplete. Sometimes he catches himself and says it first. That second thing, him catching himself, is the part that matters most to me. It means the system is working.

A few things that help alongside the language:

One task at a time when possible. When there are too many open loops running simultaneously, the chances of any of them closing drop significantly.

Smaller loops are easier to close than bigger ones. Instead of asking him to clean up the yard, I ask him to put one specific thing away. Loop closed. Then the next one.

No tone. The question only works if it lands as neutral. The moment it sounds like criticism, it stops being a tool and becomes a conflict.

He will not close every loop every time. That is not the goal. The goal is a system we both participate in that does not require me to nag and does not require him to feel managed.

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ONE THING WORTH KNOWING

What Rob experiences has a clinical name: executive dysfunction. It refers to impairments in the set of cognitive skills that govern planning, sequencing, task initiation, and task completion. These skills are primarily managed by the prefrontal cortex.

Executive dysfunction is one of the most commonly documented effects of traumatic brain injury, dementia, CTE, and Parkinson's disease. According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, executive function deficits affect 84 percent of patients with Alzheimer's disease, 48 percent of adults with moderate to severe TBI in the subacute phase, and between 10 and 65 percent of people with Parkinson's disease depending on disease stage.

Research published in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience confirms that executive dysfunction after TBI directly affects a person's capacity for independent daily functioning, not because of physical limitation but because the cognitive architecture required to initiate, sequence, and complete multi-step tasks has been disrupted.

The incomplete loop on the counter is a symptom. Naming it that way, privately and between the two of you, changes how you respond to it.

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ONE RESOURCE

The Alzheimer's Association has a practical guide on daily care strategies for people with executive dysfunction, including how to break tasks into smaller steps, how to use environmental cues, and how to communicate in ways that reduce frustration for both the person and the caregiver.

Find it at: alz.org/help-support/caregiving/daily-care

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FROM THE NEST

The loop system did not come from expertise. It came from two people trying to figure out how to live inside a hard situation without losing their patience or their dignity.

If you have built something similar in your house, something that works even if nobody else would recognize it as a strategy, I would genuinely like to hear about it. Reply to this email.

See you next Wednesday.

Heather

Robbins Nest Alliance

robbinsnestalliance.com

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