We have a family friend I\u2019ll call Judy. Judy was a secretary for decades but could have been an MBA if she grew up in a time and place where women went to business school. She is the most organized person I\u2019ve ever met, and one of the smartest\u2014she\u2019s done taxes for several complicated businesses and is a crossword puzzle Jedi. She\u2019s also one of sweetest people I know\u2014even when she\u2019s trumping us at Scrabble\u2014and I\u2019m pretty sure anyone who\u2019s ever met her would agree with me.<\/p>\n
Judy\u2019s become increasingly forgetful in the last five years and especially so in the last two. She forgets conversations from minutes before, wears the same sweater days in a row, and struggles to handle the basic household finances she once excelled at. Judy has Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Few situations are as painful, gut-wrenching, and patience-testing as helping someone cope with this disease. (Perhaps the only thing more difficult than loving someone with Alzheimer\u2019s is being the person who has it.) As family members and caregivers, it\u2019s our natural tendency to say things like, \u201cMom, you must remember Bill?\u201d or \u201cCome on, Mom, you know the word for that.\u201d But our role as caregivers isn\u2019t to temporarily \u201cteach\u201d Mom the right words\u2014our primary goal should be to make her life easier.<\/p>\n
Take, for example, a repeated question. If Mom asks the same question over and over (\u201cWhen are we eating lunch?\u201d or \u201cWho\u2019s coat is that?\u201d), our goal should be to reduce the anxiety\u2014not just make the question go away. Rather than trying to silence the question, (\u201cI already told you, we\u2019re eating in 20 minutes\u201d or \u201cThat\u2019s my coat; don\u2019t worry about it.\u201d), our goal should be to eliminate (or distract from) the cause of stress. (\u201cWould you like a snack now?\u201d \u201cLet me move that coat out of the way so it\u2019s not bothering you.\u201d)<\/p>\n
A friend told me the story of her mother-in-law, who became very agitated every time she visited my friend’s home, constantly asking when she was going home. To relieve her anxiety, my friend kept a basket of clean, unfolded laundry nearby. Socks, towels, pillowcases\u2014items that are easy to fold and that always relaxed Mom the minute she started folding them.<\/p>\n
For a lot of people with dementia, the evening hours are the toughest part of the day. If you can arrange to be there for those hours (or have a caregiver present), it can help ease the anxiety. Use music, old photos, food and recipes, a puzzle\u2014whatever it takes to distract from their worries. If they pace the floors at night (a common behavior), don\u2019t try to stop them. Just make sure the path is clear and safe, and maybe even walk alongside them.<\/p>\n
I could write a year\u2019s worth of words on the subject of Alzheimer\u2019s, but there\u2019s one guiding principle to keep in mind: The most important thing in caring for someone with this disease is how you make your loved one feel. That is what your mom will remember\u2014even when she remembers nothing else.<\/p>\n
I recently heard a story about a husband and wife dealing with Alzheimer\u2019s. The husband no longer recognized his wife, and she told a caregiver how sad this made her feel. The caregiver went over and asked the husband to talk about his wife. The man gushed about the wonderful woman he\u2019d married\u2014how she made him laugh, what a great cook she was, and how good she was to him. The wife heard all of this and broke down crying. Although the husband didn\u2019t necessarily recognize his wife, he certainly remembered how she made him feel, and that was all she needed.<\/p>\n
When you think about it, it\u2019s a principle we should carry in life with all people whether they have Alzheimer\u2019s disease or not. In the end, we will all be remembered for how we made people feel. Make that memory a good one.<\/em><\/p>\n Molly Rowe owns FirstLight Home Care with her husband, Steve, and lives in Swampscott with their two sons. FirstLight provides non-medical in-home care to adults in Swampscott, Marblehead, Lynn, Salem, Peabody, Danvers, Beverly, and Lynnfield. For more information and help caring for your loved ones in the comfort of their own homes, please visit FirstLight\u2019s website at <\/em>www.swampscott.firstlighthomecare.com<\/em><\/a> or contact Molly at <\/em>781-691-5755\/mrowe@firstlighthomecare.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We have a family friend I\u2019ll call Judy. Judy was a secretary for decades but could have been an MBA if she grew up in a time and place where women went to business school. She is the most organized person I\u2019ve ever met, and one of the smartest\u2014she\u2019s done…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}