Dealing with Alzheimers

[imoldernu]

If you have a friend, relative or general concern about Alzheimers, you may want to read this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/changing-the-tragedy-narrative-why-a-growing-camp-is-promoting-a-joyful-approach-to-alzheimers/2019/02/21/2c4ed4f0-2244-11e9-81fd-b7b05d5bed90_story.html?utm_term=.ad2429c7ae13

If the paywall stops you, consider downloading Mercury Reader (free).

The article looks at a different way of dealing with Alzheimers. In a way, it's like what my family has come down to, in dealing with my own onset, which has been going on for three years. Instead of the gloom and doom, and whispers, facing it with a positive attitude, and a smile. Jeanie and I have come to the good point described by the article, and between my kids and my friends, we have learned to deal with it without depression or fear.

Even when I go to the Alzheimers unit in our CCRC, I've found that it works, even with those who are quite far along.

Sometimes, the answer to serious problems, doesn't always come from medication.

Excerpt:

Tom and Peggy Misciagna were sitting in their Manassas, Va., home recently, talking about the children they adopted overseas in the 1980s, when Tom, 64, misremembered a major detail.

“We got two kids out of India — ” he said.

Peggy, 59, chimed in. “Philippines.”

“Oh yeah, Philippines,” said Tom, a retired CIA officer. He grinned wryly at his wife. “That’s Ollie talking.”

Ollie is their nickname for Alzheimer’s, the disease Tom was diagnosed with seven years ago. For the Misciagnas, Ollie is a third presence in the house, one they never invited in. But since he’s here, they’re making room for him. And though it might seem counterintuitive, they are even trying to have fun with him.

That approach — giving the illness a nickname, smoothly zigging after hitting a zag — puts the Misciagnas in a growing camp of people determined to approach dementia care differently, coming at it with a sense of openness, playfulness and even wonder.

 

[Lsbcal]

Wishing you the best lmolernu.

BTW, it took me some months before I got your login name. ...cute!

 

[Jerry1]

Thanks for posting. This week, we decided that MIL can’t go back to her house. Can’t be alone. We knew this day would come. It has. Haven’t really told MIL yet. Just going with “not today” when she asks about going home. We’ll figure something better out in time, but our care giving days have went from on and off to full time.