Dealing With Alzheimer’s Patients Requires Patience And Understanding
By Victor R. Martinez, El Paso Times, Texas | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
Tears of frustration, tears of joy but mostly tears of missing the mother she once knew.
Gaddy's mother, 86-year-old
"I had no one to tell me how to deal with it," Gaddy said. "I looked for help, but it just wasn't out there. What do I do when she gets aggressive? What do I do when she doesn't want to take a shower or doesn't know how? How do I take the car away from her? How do I deal with it when she is screaming at me or blaming me for something I know I didn't do?"
There was also the frustration of leaving up her life in
"There I was, in my 40s and moving back home," she said. "That's hard to deal with. Yet, I wouldn't have done it any other way. She is my parent and I will take care of her and do anything I can for her."
Nearly two-thirds of those with Alzheimer's disease -- 3.2 million -- are women.
More than three in five unpaid Alzheimer's caregivers are women -- and there are 2.5 more women than men who provide on-duty care 24-hours a day for someone with Alzheimer's.
"One of the issues for caregivers is the cost and the time it takes for an individual to care for somebody with Alzheimer's disease," said
Among women caregivers who also work, 20 percent have gone from working full-time to part-time because of their caregiving duties.
Its education programs address such topics as basic dementia education, all aspects and stages of care giving, and issues related to living with Alzheimer's disease. The educational programs are also offered online (alz.org) and are available in English and Spanish.
"One of the most important things we have now is the help line that's available 24/7," Gorman said. "We have social workers with master's degrees and clinicians who answer the calls. If someone wakes up at 2 o'clock in the morning and is having an issue, there will be someone they can talk to right then and there."
Gaddy, who is the youngest of nine children, took care of her mother at the family home for three years before she was moved to
"There came a point where I just couldn't do it anymore," Gaddy said. "It's a 24/7 job. In order to get help for me, we tried to hire caregivers and it just wouldn't work. She wouldn't allow them in the house."
Gaddy found solace at the
Gaddy noticed a change in her mother in 2006.
"At first she started losing things and experienced a little bit of paranoia but we didn't think anything was wrong," she said. "Then she started telling us about the people trying to get in her house. She would tell us stories of people being on the roof or people had been in the night before and they had taken showers and tried on her clothes. None of this was true, so we knew something was wrong."
Gaddy said it's difficult watching her mother slowly losing her ability to reason.
"To watch your parent go down this road of forgetting how to take care of herself and forgetting who we are is very emotional," she said. "We are familiar to her, but in her eyes, I'm her sister. She doesn't understand her condition, she thinks she's 19 years old and she's in a boarding school and these are all children and she's the eldest."
Gaddy visits her mother every day, which brings joy to
"It brightens my day when she comes,"
A smile breaks out on Gaddy's face as she listens to her mother talk about searching for turtles in the community garden.
"Humor is the one tool that people have to find," she said. "You are not laughing at them, you are laughing at the things they do, and that keeps you going. I try to find humor in what she says and what she does."
Patience and understanding are also important when dealing with a loved one with Alzheimer's.
"The main thing I've learned is you have to accept that they are not the same person they used to be," she said. "They don't mean to yell at you, they just get frustrated and they blame you and they turn aggressive. They are not there anymore. They are not the same person you once knew so you need to understand that and deal with that."
Help is available
The topics include:
--Know the Ten Signs: Early Detection Matters.
--The Basics: Memory Loss, Dementia and Alzheimer's.
--Legal and Financial Planning for Alzheimer's Disease.
There is also 24/7 support and safety services:
--
--MedicAlert + Alzheimer's Association Safe Return: A 24-hour emergency response service for individuals with Alzheimer's disease or related dementias. It provides a means of returning individuals with dementia who have become lost or wandered back to their homes and families.
--Caregiver Support Groups: The support groups are facilitated by Association trained individuals. The goal of the
For more information call 544-1799.
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