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 know the
question above sounds dumb, but…
If you have a parent,
or spouse, or partner who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or one of several
dementias (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, frontotemporal
dementia, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, mixed dementia, and normal
pressure hydrocephalus, and others as well), you may have started wondered if
you were going to get the diagnosis someday, too.
If you haven’t,
maybe you’d better START thinking about it. I’m pretty sure Mom and Dad never
thought about it, so that when Dad was diagnosed by his doctor, he denied it. Vehemently.
Violently. To the point that, honest to God, we thought MOM was crazy. We
thought MOM was the one with dementia.
When I took over
their medical matters – and managing dentist visits, drug regimens, checkups,
and appointments – I found the words clearly written in a 2014 visit. Dad continued
to deny it until…well, he continued to deny it until he was in a memory care
unit. The only way we got him THERE was because when Mom reached her last days,
the care facility they were living in offered hospice care (they offered it in
ANY of the units, but we told Dad it was just downstairs). He moved in and ever
after that, would talk about living in another room and wanting to go back
there.
I out-and-out lied
to him, telling him he and Mom had been in the unit from the beginning. Who
knows, maybe that made the Alzheimer’s worse; I’ll never know.
There were lots of
incidents and issues Dad had leading up to his death, but one of them was
continually forgetting where he’d left things. His wallet was absolutely key
there. He’d get frantic if he didn’t know where it was. When they lived in a townhouse,
once he’d put his wallet in a half-used box of checks which was actually
sitting on the ledge in the kitchen. But we searched for two days for that one.
By the time he got to the memory care unit, there were only a few places he’d
put it (the oddest being in his pillow case…) but there were times when it
would “disappear” and I’d search for it until I’d pretty much turned the entire
(tiny) apartment upside down. He’d always find it a couple days later. I SWEAR
he was hiding it in his underwear!
Let’s come to me
(because, you know, in caring for Alzheimer’s patients, even if you’re not actually
DOING the care, “It’s all about ME!”). When I can’t remember where I left
something or forgot to go to an appointment, or I KNOW I did something, but it’s
clearly not been done, I think for a horrifying moment that I’ve finally
reached the point where Alzheimer’s is about to claim another victim.
The “logical” me
(and there’s a big part of me that IS…I’m a SCIENCE teacher!) knows that simple
short term memory lapses are a part of the aging process. As the article
referenced below asks: “When does an ordinary memory lapse indicate something
more serious, like early Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia?”
Here are some
things we can watch out for – with the help of spouse, family, friends, and
co-workers:
“…forgetfulness
and other symptoms may develop over a period of many years.
“Increasingly,
research indicates that feeling you are forgetful may be cause for concern. A
study conducted by Dr. Reisberg and colleagues found that seniors with
subjective memory complaints are, over many years, 4.5 times more likely to
develop mild cognitive impairment or dementia than those who do not have such
memory complaints. That’s one reason why it’s important to pay attention for
signs of being forgetful, and to seek medical attention about early signs of
dementia and a possible dementia evaluation and work-up…it helps to consider
some key symptoms of mild cognitive impairment and the early stages of
dementia.
“Forgetting a
friend’s name or not remembering a lunch date is something that most people
without dementia do from time to time. Someone with early dementia, though,
might repeatedly forget names or plans, and forget all about the incident soon
afterward. Curiously, while someone with early dementia may forget something
that happened the previous evening, they may recall in detail events that
happened in the more distant past, last year, say, or during their childhood.
“At these early
stages of dementia, family members, friends and colleagues may begin to notice
that something seems wrong…Such situations may, understandably, trigger
feelings of anger and defensiveness. They can also produce anxiety, which can
in turn make anyone even more forgetful. The anxiety may be particularly
pronounced in someone in the early stages of dementia.
“…those in the
early stages of dementia may also have problems with judgment and planning.
Someone with early dementia might, for example, become distracted in preparing
a recipe or forget the rules of a card game…[or]…find it impossible to do
everyday chores, like balancing a checkbook, that they used to find easy…Unusual
changes in personality can also occur, like showing bursts of anger for no
reason…and while many of us plop down on the couch to watch TV after a long day
at work, someone with dementia may show little or no initiative in reaching out
to friends and stare at the TV for hours or sleep all day.”
So far, I don’t
THINK these have been happening to me, but it pays to be aware. NOT paranoid, but aware, and above all,
HONEST. I will NOT reach the point Dad did, denying that there’s any problem…
Resource: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/314850.php,
https://www.alzinfo.org/articles/diagnosis/just-forgetful-or-is-it-dementia/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI87L2_cu24gIVGZ7ACh3hJQerEAAYASAAEgIUOvD_BwE
