Battling Alzheimer

From the time I was about 9 or 10 years old, my mother encouraged me to keep a journal (well, she called it a diary).  Although I always enjoyed writing, I never understood why she bugged me so much to write my thoughts.  I figured maybe she wanted to read it when I wasn’t around.  Or maybe, she recognized my desire and ability to write before I did.  She surely never realized that the practice would help me to cope with caring for her as we, together, battled Alzheimer’s disease.

As a caregiver, you have a lot going on in your heart and head and journaling is a great way to relieve stress.

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Enough people have trouble talking with their grandmothers - or their mothers. Sometimes they don’t know what to talk about, other times they don’t want to talk about the same things you want to talk about. If their grandmothers or mothers also have Alzheimer’s disease, that doesn’t help the situation.

When you carry on a conversation with someone with Alzheimer’s, you can count on them to repeat themselves and to say some things that you may not agree with. “I don’t remember anything they’re talking about. I thought they were the one with the memory problems, not me,” you mutter to yourself.

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That’s what McDonald’s always told us, when they were trying to sell us hamburgers and fries using the medium of television jingles. Actually, it was Barry Manilow who wrote the jingle - did you know that? I always knew that boy would make good.

But the song is true. You do deserve a break today. Life without Memories reminded me last month about how hard it is for an Alzheimer’s caregiver to get a break.

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Alzheimer’s disease often brings stress and guilt. Not necessarily for the patient. Not for the professional caregiver either, since they are experienced and trained not to be bothered by these things. No, I mean that Alzheimer’s disease often brings stress and guilt for the patient’s loved ones.

Certainly, when your family member is distressed, you wonder if you did something wrong. Maybe you didn’t. Maybe you did something they didn’t like, but you had no choice. Maybe you made a mistake, but everybody does. Maybe it’s too late to fix it. We all need to learn to deal with guilt for things we really are guilty of, instead of shoving it aside. But you may not be guilty of anything.

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After she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, my grandmother never became violent or extremely angry. She had lived with some angry people, apparently, and I think she decided she couldn’t win by out-raging them. She eventually found other ways of dealing with conflict. She was involved in some family violence, but nobody ever told me if she hit back.

Most of the things that made her angry would have made other people angry. Her daughter had been mistreated by a husband a few decades earlier: time to let that go, but certainly a reason for anger. Siblings had fought over the family inheritance: also time to let that go, though she had reason for resentment. Though she didn’t remember the inheritance negotiations accurately, it’s probably true that they could have been more fair to her. She remembered the feelings of unfairness but not the details. So she reacted to and reconstructed the events according to her memory and her feelings.

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By Alvaro Fernandez

Exciting new research, conducted by neuropsychologist Robert S. Wilson at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center in Chicago, suggests new ways to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s Disease as we age.

- “The study found a cognitively active person in old age was 2.6 times less likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s disease than a cognitively inactive person in old age.
- “Wilson says the study also found frequent cognitive activity during old age, such as visiting a library or attending a play, was associated with reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment, a transitional stage between normal aging and dementia, and less rapid decline in cognitive function.”
- “If you want your mind to stay healthy into your golden years, don’t worry, be happy.

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