her<\/em>! Because, in truth, it made her much more anxious, and not a bit less confused. It undermined her self-confidence by highlighting where she was failing.<\/p>\nI wish I could say that was all I needed to learn to help my mother live well with Alzheimer\u2019s. But it was an important start because it led me to turn away from the medical model of focusing on what was wrong with her, and trying to fix it, and to concentrate instead on recognizing how the way we interacted with her affected her.<\/p>\n
The problems that arise when caring for someone living with Alzheimer\u2019s are unfamiliar and easy to misinterpret. It made sense to me that, because of her loss of short-term memory, my mother was unable to keep a phone number in mind long enough to dial it. To solve that problem and to allow her to make calls independently, I bought her an automatic dialer. You pick up the receiver and push the button next to the name of the person you want to call. But it was more than she could handle. How many times did I go over it with her? How exasperated did I sound? It pains me to recall.<\/p>\n
The early years of caring for someone living with Alzheimer\u2019s are a minefield of such unexpected problems, because most of the time the person looks and acts like he always has. Until caregivers understand the brain damage that the disease is causing, they are likely to expect too much. They need to know that the losses in ability are real, so they don’t attribute inaction to stubbornness. And they need to know the challenges the person faces so they can compensate appropriately. (Later, when the disease is more advanced, caregivers are likely to expect too little and will need help, instead, to see that the person is still much more than he seems.)<\/p>\n
The automatic phone dialer stymied my mother because it had two steps in sequence: pick up receiver, push button. Sequencing is impaired in Alzheimer\u2019s. Setting a table, getting dressed, following a recipe: all of these activities, and many others, consist of simple steps that you do in sequence. And all of them become difficult for people living with Alzheimer\u2019s unless someone breaks the task down to one step at a time. \u201cWould you put these place mats on the table? Great! Now, here are the forks\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s an appropriate way to compensate, especially if it\u2019s done in a tone that doesn\u2019t demean the person. But doing that all day is a tall order for a lone family caregiver. As is infinite patience. The caregiver needs time off; support; help understanding the behavior of the person with Alzheimer\u2019s; and encouragement and guidance to help the person remain himself.<\/p>\n
In future blogs I\u2019ll write about what the person living with Alzheimer\u2019s needs, and how leaving those needs unmet results in the very behaviors that form the basis of the Alzheimer\u2019s stereotypes. I\u2019ll tell of people living with Alzheimer\u2019s who forcefully expressed their needs\u2014but no one understood.<\/p>\n
Based on my 23 years of experience of leading support groups, I’ll give readers a sense of the problems we solve together and the wisdom we’ve gained, such as that the way we regard Alzheimer\u2019s disease, and the person living with it, matters crucially to the person\u2019s sense of self.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll point out the strengths that remain in someone with Alzheimer\u2019s, and the many ways in which he is still the same person. I hope readers will see the common ground we share with him. When we recognize that common ground, when we feel it, our humanity expands and stereotypes crumble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An empty shell. Doesn\u2019t know who he is. Violent. Doesn\u2019t recognize family members. Unable to communicate. The negative stereotypes and exaggerations of Alzheimer\u2019s disease abound. Even the harrowing descriptions of Alzheimer\u2019s meant to increase our sympathy\u2014robs its victims of dignity,…<\/span><\/p>\nRead more Regarding Alzheimer\u2019s<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4007,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions\/4007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}