Battling Alzheimer

By Brian Ward

It’s 5:00 p.m., and all of a sudden your calm, serene mother is now very agitated, angry, and maybe even combative. Nothing you do seems to help, and quite frankly, you’re nervous and maybe even frightened. It seems as if there is nothing you can do. Take heart; you’re not alone, and there is help.

What your loved one with Alzheimer’s is experiencing is called Sundowners. It is very common for those with Alzheimer’s disease to become increasingly agitated as daylight fades away into night. Why the agitation?

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By Harriet Hodgson

Coping with my mother’s forgetfulness was easy in the early stages of her dementia. Things changed after she started to hallucinate. I was taking my mother back to her apartment in an assisted living community when she described one of her hallucinations.

“Last night four people came into my apartment and asked to live with me,” she began. “I told them it was my apartment and they couldn’t stay. I could see them clearly and then they slowly disappeared. It took me a while to realize they weren’t real.”

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