Daily Responses Alzheimers Caregivers Might Try
Daily Responses and Techniques
Caregivers Might Try
for the Benefit of Alzheimer’s Patients
Nice not to have a care in the World! (Web Photo)
Is there a ‘mindset’ I might attempt to develop which prompts some common responses to employ as I attempt to handle various situations which arise while caring for an Alzheimer’s Patient?
Daily Considerations
You’ve probably already realized that not only do countless numbers of things arise each day, but the Alzheimer’s Victim blesses you with sometimes as many as a huge number of repeats. Questions or comments which are repeated at random either all day long or when you least need the distraction. In order to preserve your own sanity, you’ve got to figure out (in advance) what automatic responses line of thought you might say that will cause a pause in the afflicted person’s mental process so perhaps over a period of time that repeated question, comment or activity might come forth fewer and fewer times. At least momentarily though, your almost automated response might cause them to focus on something else which will perhaps allow you a short alleviation of stress. Either way, you’ve solved the problem that was then at hand.
For Instance:
a)… I cannot take a drive without Mom asking me how fast I’m going. My automatic response is 318, 528, 442mph or some other outlandish number. Mom, of course, has no clue whether or not the miles per hour figure I’ve given her is real or not. But, she is then aware that I know what I’m doing and am being careful about it. Not only is the sometimes minute by minute issue of her concern for my speed resolved, but she over time has lessened her queries. (How she is able to mentally digest and in some way remember that, I have no idea… but I’m glad it does.)
Why don’t I just tell her the correct speeds? The answer is that her response to my outlandish statement is one of countless ways I am able to detect in which mental state she is then residing. When she in some learned fashion corrects me, I know she’s more ‘with me’ mentally, which, of course, encourages my discussion of things that I am almost always unable to visit with her about. (History, family, friends, relatives, goals, etc.) It has been a productive way to learn when I might proceed with deeper, personally important questions.
b)… When we are following a curve in the road she almost always becomes anxious thinking that I’m going to run off the road or hit a tree. Therefore, she’ll cringe in her seat and exclaim, ‘Don’t go in the ditch!’ In that roads, especially between us and town are made up of curves, it’s a never ending concern for her. The same is true if I get within twenty feet of the car ahead of me at a red light… ‘Watch out’, she will yell. ‘Don’t hit her!’ ‘Be careful’, etc My automatic response is, ‘Why would I?’ Often, the question will prompt her to really wonder ‘why I would’ and in the process change her pattern of thought. Thus, her focus of attention has changed and we proceed beyond at least that curve. Or that light. Or that Stop Sign. The idea in most anything of this nature is to change the Alzheimer’s patient’s direction of thought. Even if it doesn’t relate to the concern that initially caused her fearful proclamation. Such as my instant reply being, ‘what are we going to have for dinner?’
c)… When we are closely approaching the house or even when traveling down roads she’s traveled literally hundreds of times, she’ll wonder if we’ve ever been down this road before. I can simply say, ‘Yes’!… …But I’ve learned! Why take a chance and cause her the concern of even momentarily wondering why she doesn’t remember? So, even if we are just a few houses distant from our own home, my response is usually along the lines of, ‘Yes, a long time ago. We usually go another route, though’, or ‘Yes, but the weather is different today and things look different’. Whatever my response, the ‘new’ things she is then seeing become more interesting. She ponders that rather than her thoughts that something is wrong with her because she can’t remember.
d)… Often we’ll leave the grocery store and enter the car to travel on. As we barely begin to drive out of the parking lot Mom will ask if we need to stop at the grocery store to buy some food. I can correct her, point at the bags of food in the back seat and tell her we both just got back into the car from grocery shopping. Or, I can simply point at the grocery bags and say that I picked up some food earlier. Which path taken do you expect would cause her the most internal anguish? Why do that to her?
e)… Mom will sometimes come to me proudly exclaiming that she just cleaned the kitchen, mopped the floors, cleaned the bathtub, baked donuts, etc., etc., etc. She might even bring in a platter of store bought pastries that she’d just taken out of the well labeled package. Through some quirk in her mind she believes she has just finished baking the pastries or just accomplished any of the other tasks just noted. I can choose to correct her… hoping to teach her mind to work better. Or, I can provide her great joy and praise her for doing such a fine job. Which, do you suppose, is best… not only for her, but for my own peace of mind?
I employ the same concept throughout the day on any number of topics. I’ll finish combing her hair, wait a moment and proclaim what a fine job she did combing her hair. Making the dinner for us. Bringing us an ice cream cone. Paying for the treat at a store. Making her bed. Remembering to go to the toilet. Choosing her outfit. Planting such pretty flowers. – The concept I’m presenting is that your opportunities to uplift her Emotional Content are endless.
Friend, that’s what you do! Love the afflicted person. Build the self esteem of the Victim up. Why not take every opportunity available to enhance his or her value? Especially when emotions play such a huge part in their day to day pleasures of life. Especially, even, if their Emotions are their life.
f)… Mom’s husband is a retired Military Policeman and State Juvenile Reformatory Guard. He enjoys watching TV war and western ‘shoot em up’ type movies as well as Cops, Forensics, etc.. When Mom is watching with him she almost always doesn’t realize they are just movies; just re-creations of past, even historic events. Thus, there are times when she’ll begin to cry or in other ways become anxious because of the fate of one man against another. Sometimes particulars of some scenes will even come back upon her during the night in nightmares… which had become a VERY regular occurrence.
Point worthy of note: When the ‘bad people’ are killed in the shows, I remind and sometimes stress to her it’s just a movie; make believe; never indicating people are dead. And I NEVER say they are in Heaven. Or Hell, for that matter. By removing the relationship between death and Heaven it is less likely I’ll disrupt Mom’s emotions when she is once again reminded her Mother and favorite sister are in Heaven. (She’ll think them dead – and that is somewhat frightening.) Right now, Heaven is just a place to go for awhile… like the grocery store or Seattle. And in that Mom readily forgets most conversations within a moment or two, Heaven remains a good place. Understandably, given the death scenes in the shows, death can be recurrently frightening experiences.
The dilemma is, do I constantly remove Mom from Dad’s presence in order to avoid such shows? Or, do I restrict him from his enjoyment of life? His memories of the military and law enforcement? I almost always remove her. That way, I’ve not opened another ‘can of worms’ having to deal with his stubbornness, nor his then jeopardized self appraisal, as well. Thankfully, he seems to have changed his habits over the last few months and for whatever type of reasoning is going on in his mind, he is now watching far less violence.
g) You are extremely UNwise if in the presence of an Alzheimer’s patient you personally watch television shows that focus on the bad side of humanity, i.e. Cops, Forensics, any Crime dramas, etc. You must remember that while a person afflicted by Alzheimer’s will not be able to intellectually follow the rationale of the shows and by means of intellectual understanding, recognize the optimum outcome of arrest, conviction, etc., they absolutely do remember the negative emotions they’ve experienced.
In the beginning stages of this dilemma, Mom often awoke in the middle of the night believing someone was by gun, knife, poison or fire trying to kill her. Or, children were dying in a house fire down the street. Or, drowning. Mom’s always powerful sense of caring for others seemed to always resurrect itself, Alzheimer’s be damned, causing within her the great and urgent desire to leave our home in order to save them. Naturally, because she saw that I was unaware or unconcerned with the children’s dilemma, she knew that no one else knew or cared about their dilemma, either. You name it; if she saw it on television… that negative memory could resurrect itself during her sleep. And until I began taking the proactive step of removing her from her husband’s television shows, indeed, her sleep often was negatively interrupted.
Why is it she can’t remember most things just experienced, but terrible things she sees on television will very often return? Friend… the answer is that emotions, particularly intensely felt emotions play a HUGE and often continuing role in the life of an Alzheimer’s Victim. As a Caregiver, you must diligently strive to protect that avenue, that direct line to her inner self.
Caregiver… emotional upheavals may very well come back to haunt you, as well. Instead of a peaceful migration toward becoming a ‘spirit free from negative emotional encumbrances’, so to speak, and at least somewhat easier to deal with, after witnessing the intensely portrayed downside of humanity on television, the Alzheimer’s patient may very well become increasingly encumbered with inner emotional concerns that they, of course, can’t even identify. Those intense negative emotions will override the patient’s usual nature in any number of ways. They might become more withdrawn, more angry, more generally unsettled, frightened, standoffish, etc. or they, as Mom, might even awaken in the middle of the night re-living the Crime drama, et al, and interpreting it as fact. And when YOU won’t help them pursue the necessity of saving a child’s life; when you won’t let them escape the house because you are ‘forcing’ them back to bed… they may well also believe that you are going to kill them. After all, you’ve proven to the patient don’t care about the children. Nor do you care about the burglar or killer. Nor the fire that is spreading throughout the other rooms of your house. (Of course, that’s assuming that you have awaken and heard their emotional struggles.) Thus, due to TV shows displaying the ills of mankind… YOU …during certain periods of thought may also become their enemy. Rest assured that whether you become their enemy or not, whatever has gripped the depths of their emotions will in some manner come out… compounding the already difficult trials you face when you care for ‘normal’ concerns.
h)… When Mom is ‘visiting’ me in my hideaway I will almost always make it a point to play old, soft classical or some other very easy listening music. In our case, instrumentals only. You may wish to play around a little and discover what type of music instills in your loved one a sense of peace; tranquility. It could be the same; or vocals; or sounds of the seashore or a forest. Who knows that it might even be rock and roll! God forbid it be rap or reg! It’s worth taking the time to discover what uniquely pleases the person for whom you are providing care. It’s important to discover the type of music which foremost soothes him or her. If you do you’ll also be blessed because through their peace, you’ll discover you will also gain a deeper sense of peace.
i)… As you probably already know, the level of exercise experienced by the person under care diminishes as time goes along. Therefore, when you go to the grocery store or venture out on some other outing, you may wish to consider parking as far away from the entrance as you see is a reasonable walk for the person in your care. Consider the distance of the walk in as well as the walk around the store and back out to your vehicle. An option to that is to simply roam around the store for as long as you know is reasonable for exercise purposes, even if you just went in to buy a loaf of bread. This is one easy way to undertake an exercise adventure without the afflicted person really knowing it. Dreading the long walk, i.e. After all, from their perspective they must go to the store.
More later, but now try…
Afterward…
