Dad’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s stayed
hidden from everyone until I took over the medical administration of my parents
in 2015. Once I found out, there was a deafening silence from most of the
people I know even though virtually all of them would add, “My _____ had
Alzheimer’s…” But there was little help, little beyond people sadly shaking
heads. Or horror stories. Lots of those. Even the ones who knew about the
disease seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Alzheimer’s
Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut
up for any known reason, I started this part of my blog…
I woke up this morning
with a "missed call" notification from my dad. He called at 11:22 and didn’t leave a message. It’s
early morning right now and I can’t call him just yet. If he was up late, then
he’ll still be sound asleep. Waking him now would just confuse him more.
He’s been calling
more lately, continuing his…delusion seems harsh, hallucination sounds like an
LSD trip…illusion. I like the sound of that better. When I think of the word
illusion, I think of “magicians” and “magic tricks”; sleight of hand in other
words – making me think something happened but it didn’t in the way I ASSUME it
did.
An Alzheimer’s group
in Canada has this to say in defining this experience:
“Delusions are
false beliefs. Even if you give evidence about something to the person with
dementia, she will not change her belief. For example, a person with dementia
may have a delusion in which she believes someone else is living in her house
when she actually lives alone…”
“Hallucinations are
incorrect perceptions of objects or events involving the senses. They seem real
to the person experiencing them but cannot be verified by anyone else.
Hallucinations are a false perception that can result in either positive or
negative experiences.”
Lately, Dad has
been having an increasing number of both. Things like the door closing to his
apartment and him believing that Mom just left for work. He has these often and
so far, they have always been about Mom. He even called one day from the “floor
phone” to tell me that I wouldn’t believe it, but he had just been talking to
Mom in his room and he wanted me to come over right away to see that he wasn’t
crazy! That would be hallucination,
something he sees, hears, tastes, touches, or smells.
He’s also
convinced that he’s moving “back home” (he’s recently started asking the staff
where he lives if he can have a box. I already confiscated one because I’m
afraid he’ll trip over it. He got himself another one.) and that a bunch of
guys stop by to pick him up regularly to go to work – at a place that does
charitable stuff. Also there are times that he thinks Mom left him because she
wanted a divorce. These are delusions – something he believes.
But I’m going to
start lumping them together into an illusion.
But I was
specifically wondering WHAT was going on in Dad’s brain. While there doesn’t
seem to be any recent discoveries, I found this from 2014 (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1064748113002832):
“Delusional
thoughts are common among patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) and may be…linked
to [the fact that they] cannot recall accurate information, which leads to
inaccurate beliefs and [that they can’t] appreciate the illogic of beliefs…Delusions
in AD are associated with dysfunction in specific frontal and temporal cortical
regions. Delusions are…linked to memory deficits but not to insight.”
Of course, this
doesn’t change anything. Dad’s illusions will continue to increase until his
brain reaches a point where it can no longer function – Stage 7. Here’s a quick
review the stages:
Stage 1: No memory
problems are evident.
Stage 2: Minor
memory problems but not distinguishable from normal age related memory loss.
Stage 3: Friends
and family members begin to notice memory and cognitive problems like not being
able to find the right word during conversations, forgetting new acquaintances,
an frequently losing valuables.
Stage 4: Clear cut,
classic symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are apparent.
Stage 5: Need help
with many day to day activities. Significant confusion, forgetting person information
like phone number but still able to bathe and toilet independently. They also
usually still know their family members and some detail about their personal
histories, especially their childhood and youth.
[Dad is probably
here-ish.]
Stage 6: Confusion
or unawareness of environment and surroundings, behavior problems, assistance
with activities of daily living, recognizes only friends and relatives, loss of
history, incontinence, wandering.
Stages 7: Lose
ability to respond to their environment or communicate, assistance with all
activities of daily living is necessary, and many lose the ability to swallow
[Dad has trouble with this already].
So, there you go.
Living in his illusory world is hard for him – but it’s got to be one of the
hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with.
Later…
Resource: http://www.alzheimer.ca/en/Living-with-dementia/Understanding-behaviour/Delusions-and-hallucinations
No comments:
Post a Comment