I tried the dementia simulator being used to train Bognor care staff- here's what happened

The woman is talking to me. Her lips are moving and her hand's outstretched, counting down from five. It's impossible to tell what she's saying. There's so much noise in here and I can't distinguish any of it: laughter, people talking, radio static, television chatter, a police siren somewhere in the distance. Everything is simultaneously too loud and impossibly far away. It is a chaos of contradictions.

Before I know it, she's left me to my own devices. Trying to guess at her instructions, I stumble over to what looks like a sink full of dishes. It's dark in here, my feet hurt and my hands are numb, clumsy things. They belong to someone else. But I get to work, putting the dishes on one side and the cutlery, bundled in what must be a kind of jug, on the other.

I can only hope I'm doing the right thing, and I'm halfway through when the woman comes back. With an air of irritated disinterest, she sweeps my hard work back into the sink, puts her hand on my arm and, speaking into my ear, says the only thing I've understood so far: 'do something useful'.