You have Alz disease. Hundreds of 50 somethings receive the same sad news each year. In my case it was Mother-in-Law who was diagnosed with dementia (loss of short term memory) and later with Alz disease (Alzheimer’s). She was around 85 then and began struggling to remember quite simple things like the name for some every day item or where she had put something that was, in fact, in front of her nose.
Loss of short term memory is the first symptom
Mom lives on her own and had been managing very well for a number of years since her husband died. Around 6 years ago her physical abilities were becoming shaky. She fell over in the street a couple of times and then didn’t venture out on her own again. At that time Tony and I were not married and he lived with her so could help out but he worked full time and at weekends was courting me so a cleaner was employed to help with the vacuuming and dusting and gardeners to help mow the lawns.
After we were married and as she lost more of her previous fitness and stayed in her chair watching the TV, her loss of short term memory was becoming apparent. She began forgetting what she had already asked us or that we had visited or ‘phoned. People’s names and the names of familiar objects would escape her. Dementia was diagnosed at first. She mourned the loss of her ability to do anything for herself and felt powerless to control her own life.
Alz disease diagnosed
She was assessed after a few months during which time the loss of short term memory was even more marked and now Alz disease was diagnosed.
It didn’t rush at her; just chipped away slowly. As her physical body gradually lost tone and muscle; her bones began getting brittle and by this time she needed four social care visits a day to help her wash, dress, take the right medication and ensure she ate. Tony and I live some distance away and he would go to visit her for a day twice a week at least, staying overnight and run his business throughout the rest of his evenings and weekends in a failing effort to catch up. He’d take her shopping or out to the park to keep her fresh. Her elderly brother and sister visited and took some washing and checked up on her and Tony filled in any gaps left in her care.
Dilemma, what care is needed and when?
Due to her Alz disease we had the dilemma of if and when to offer her the opportunity to go into a care home – or insist that she did. We knew that Mom-in-Law didn’t want to leave her own home and that we did not have the facilities or a downstairs room to care for her in our little home. Alz disease – and the loss of short term memory cause the patient to repeat themselves endlessly and can cause them to become very frustrated so another consideration had to be our own health, our sanity, and the loss of all income if we couldn’t work at home.
We left the decision until it became imperative that she had 24 hour care. Many of our friends had suggested that it would be better for her to have gone into a home sooner but I figure that if I was in my 80s and all control over my domestic chores and personal care had been lost, I wouldn’t want someone to take away the one thing I had left – my own home.
Professional Care Becomes Essential
For us the conclusion to this dilemma and of many weeks of running back and forth to help her when she became upset was that she actually asked to go into respite care whilst we were on holiday. When she came out of that care she had forgotten much of her former life and couldn’t cope at all. She was frail of body and mind. We found the most wonderful care home for her and she thrived for a short while although her mind is now beginning to deteriorate and she’s hallucinating – It’s more than loss of short term memory, Alz disease is horrible robbing the sufferer of their identity.
If you have a parent with Alz disease or loss of short term memory there are some tactics you can adopt. Changing the subject often takes them out of a ‘groove’ they’re stuck in. Using humour to distract them; my lovely patient husband asks his Mum if she recognises people in her family photographs but even if she doesn’t we then remind her of incidents from her life relating to those people and she often remembers, very briefly, some happy time.
Lesson Learned
Seeing your nearest and dearest in this state is a wakeup call. Tony and I have turned our mind to how we might avoid the same fate; how can we avoid Alzheimers?
Certainly the risk increases with age, gender and poor general health; heredity, poor nutrition in childhood and poor education all play their part but can we prevent or postpone the development of Alz Disease? It seem s we can.
Is Alzheimer’s avoidable? Yes – see the 10 steps for reducing your risk of Alz Disease here.
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