Category Archives: caregiving

Aggressive Behavior in Dementialand

alzheimer's, caregiver, caregiving, dementia, dementialand, , ,

My cell phone rings in the morning as I’m blowdrying my hair before work. I look at the number, and I’m not sure who’s calling. I’m tempted to assume it’s a wrong number and not answer. I’m running late. I figure if it’s someone I know, they can leave a voicemail. However, something tells me to answer.

It’s a friend of a friend that I’ve met with before. I’ll call her Laura. Her and her husband, Al, are in their early 70’s. He has Alzheimer’s. He was diagnosed about five years ago. The last time I talked to Laura, Al was able to work at a part-time job and drive.

When I answer the phone, Laura tells me that she doesn’t know what to do. Al has been declining quickly. He needs help using the restroom. He forgets to eat. The other day he didn’t even know how to open a door.

But that’s not why Laura called. She called because he didn’t sleep last night. He wandered around the house, disorientated and muttering to himself. At about 3 am, she tried to get him to come to bed. It was dark and he didn’t recognize her. He pushed her down on the couch and started to put pressure on her neck, as if he were trying to choke her. Laura mentions several times that he didn’t leave any marks on her neck. I’m not sure if she’s trying to reassure me or herself.

Then he shuffled off and went out onto the deck. Laura spent the next couple of hours watching him from the window. She was worried he’d wander off and get lost, but she was also scared to try to convince him to come inside.

“I don’t know what to think,” Laura tells me. “He’s a gentle guy and we’ve always had a great marriage. He’s never been abusive.”

I explain that this has nothing to do with whether or not he’s a kind and gentle person. It has nothing to do with their marriage. It has everything to do with Alzheimer’s.

I tell her that he’s scared. The rest of the world may perceive Al as being in his own home–a familiar environment in which he has resided for decades–with his wife of almost 50 years. However, Al’s behavior tells me that he wasn’t in a familiar environment with a familiar person. He was in a scary place where he was approached by someone he didn’t recognize.

The term aggression in relation to people with dementia makes me uncomfortable. When we say someone is aggressive, we generally mean that they are unprovoked (rather than defending themselves) and intending to use force to hurt someone. However, I would argue that aggression among those with dementia is almost always a result of fear.

The way that someone with dementia perceives the world around them often results in a feeling of being threatened. What does anyone do when they are threatened? They lash out. It’s a natural reaction. When people with dementia show aggressive behaviors, these behaviors often make sense if we consider how they might be perceiving the world around them.

I ask Laura a few more questions. I learn that Al used to be a hunter, and Laura came home recently to find that he pulled out a few guns and put them on the kitchen table. He explained to her that someone had been messing around in the garage, so he had to be prepared. It scared Laura enough that she asked her son to come and get Al’s guns.

“I’m pretty sure that no one was in the garage,” she tells me. “But I guess you never know.”

On another day, he was convinced that “the militia” was after him. He had a bunch of knives out on the counter. He had also kicked the dog a few times, which was something the “old Al” would never have done. It horrified Laura.

Laura keeps telling me that she doesn’t think Al would ever hurt her. (She’s more worried about the dog, she says.) I have to think that if she really believed this she would not have called me before 7 am. She’s scared.

I tell her that she needs to get Al a medical check up. I am particularly concerned that he may have a urinary tract infection, which is often linked to aggressive behavior in those with dementia. She agrees he needs to go to the doctor, but she has no idea how to get him in the car. She doesn’t think he’ll go willingly.

Then I ask her if she’s checking into long term care options. There is a pause. The kind of pause where you wonder if the call has been dropped. Or if someone has hung up on you.

Finally, Laura tells me that she can’t do it. She can’t even think about Al living in a nursing home. He’s been a good husband and she will take care of him at home. She says he deserves that, and she promised their kids that he’d stay at home. She insists she’s doing okay. I point out that she wouldn’t have called me if she was doing okay. Dementia caregivers don’t call me to say they are doing fine.

I tell Laura that Alzheimer’s is a cruel beast, and sometimes it forces us to make choices that we don’t want to make. Most people are not really excited about the idea of someone that they love going to a nursing home or memory care community, but sometimes it’s the decision we have to make. I’m concerned that he needs a level of care that can no longer be provided in home. And I’m concerned about her well-being and safety.

I tell her that she can’t continue to live like this. She’s not sleeping. She’s not eating. She says she’s sick to her stomach all the time. She’s particularly worried about him hurting the dog. She can’t have people over to the house because it seems to agitate him. And she can no longer leave the house because she’s not comfortable leaving him alone.

“I can handle him at home,” she says. “I mean, how long can this go on?” I have no idea if this is a question she wants me to answer or a rhetorical question. I answer anyway. I tell her it could actually go on for quite some time.

I give her some advice on community resources. I tell her not to be afraid to call the police if she has concerns about her safety or Al’s safety. We talk about support groups, but she doesn’t seem interested. I suggest she start checking into nursing homes and memory care communities. Although she earlier said she couldn’t do it, she says she’ll consider it. She might be appeasing me.

Then I hang up my phone and get back to drying my hair. I head to work and get on with my day. I’m not sure if what I said to Laura was even close to helpful. Yet I’m not sure what I could have said differently.

That evening I get a call from Laura. She tells me Al is in the psych ward. She is upset because she thinks they gave him too many sedatives when he arrived. In her words, he’s a zombie. She’s also frustrated because they used restraints when she didn’t feel it was necessary. A social worker told her that there’s no way she can take Al home. They need to talk about other options.

Yet, she also tells me she’s feeling relieved that he’s out of the house, and she’s excited to get a decent night’s sleep. In the next breath, she says she’s feeling guilty for feeling relieved.

I hang up the phone as my husband is getting home from the gym. I pour a glass of Riesling. We sit on the couch together and watch some mindless TV with our dogs. We both vent about work. We talk about the weekend plans we have with friends.

My mind drifts, and I wonder if there could ever be a day when my husband sees me as a stranger. Despite my experience with dementia, I can’t fathom it. I can’t wrap my mind around that possibility. It’s not something that could happen to us. Not now, not in five decades, not ever.

I can’t stop thinking about how cruel it is that fifty beautiful years of marriage must end this way for Al and Laura. I want Laura to have peace, but I can’t tell her how to get there. I can explain dementia, but I can’t help her make sense of it. Sometimes there isn’t a silver lining, and sometimes you come up empty in a search for meaning.

The Prime Time in Dementialand (and Why You Don’t Want to Listen to Me Lecture at 2pm)

alzheimer's, caregiving, dementia, dementialand, time management, , ,

When I was a teenager, my mom bought me a nightshirt that said “Perky Morning People Should be Shot” across the front. Looking back, that statement was a bit harsh, but I often threw a fit (aimed at my mother) about having to get up early in the morning. And I wore that nightshirt until I was about 25…until it was virtually transparent.

Despite my allegiance to that nightshirt, I can’t say I’m not a morning person. I don’t enjoy having to get up at 5 am, but I’m most productive in the mid-morning (from 8 to 11ish). If I have important work to do, I try to structure my day to get it done in that time frame. When possible, this is when I teach my college courses. I also attempt to schedule important meetings around this time. (And, in case you were wondering, my blog posts are on scheduled released. I’ve talked to a few people recently who were impressed that I was up at the crack of dawn doing my blog. Nope. I’ve usually fast asleep when my blog posts are released.)

I’m also can’t say I’m not a night person. I’m definitely not an owl who stays up ridiculously late, but in many ways I feel my best at night. I do my best writing in the later evening (from 9 to 11ish). I feel most creative in this time frame. I’m usually happiest at night as well. If you want something from me and want to make sure I’m in a good mood when you ask, try 9 pm.

What I am not is an afternoon person. For as long as I can remember, I’ve disliked afternoons. My complaints about the evils of afternoons are many…For instance, I struggle to concentrate and lack motivation. I don’t have much patience in the afternoon. I am much more likely to be annoyed by something inconsequential in the afternoon than at any other time. I also have more anxiety in the afternoon than in the morning or evening–although I’ve never figured out why.

I’ve tried various strategies to change this, including going to bed earlier and changing what and when I eat. To be honest, I’ve tried consuming large and potentially hazardous amounts of caffeine. (In fact, I’ve tried everything short of illegal drugs to increase my energy in the afternoon.) Those things do make a small difference, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just never going to be at my best in the afternoon. Trust me…you don’t want to have to listen to me lecture at 2 pm. I’ll get through it if I have to, but I’m not as “on” as I am at 9 am.

A couple of years ago I was making plans to work with a colleague on a project that involved a lot of tedious data and a few statistical methods that we had both learned in grad school but rarely used. I asked what time we should get together.

“Let’s do late morning,” she said, “That’s my prime time.” I wasn’t sure what she meant by prime time, so I asked. She explained to me that her prime time was the time of day when she felt sharpest, and she tried to schedule her most taxing tasks in her prime time. I’m not sure why, but it had never occurred to me until this moment that I could (and should) try to schedule my day around my “best” times when I could. (I’m fortunate to have a job with some flexibility that allows me to do this, and I know not everyone is as lucky.)

If you think about your day, there are probably a couple of “pockets” of time when you feel best. Maybe you’re happiest and most productive in the early morning. Maybe you don’t really wake up until noon. Perhaps you’re the type of person who thrives late at night after most of the world has gone to bed.

A few websites suggest that you can start a spreadsheet to track your energy and mood throughout the day in order to figure out when you’re at your best. However, I would argue that if you have to collect data to figure this out you probably don’t need to worry about it much. Without a chart, I can tell you that I’m pretty lackluster in the afternoon.

No one is at their best all the time.

That includes people with dementia. Individuals who have dementia may see the patterns they have experienced their whole lives exemplified. Or the patterns may change. Either way, the patterns become more important. And structuring one’s day around these patterns, and a person’s “prime time” becomes more key to quality of life.

Recently I talked to a woman, Heidi, whose husband has Alzheimer’s. She told me that they took a trip to Hawaii, which had always been a special place for them as a couple. I asked how it had gone.

“Not good,” she said. “Not good at all.”

Heidi told me that her first mistake was booking a flight that left at 6 am. Her husband had never been a morning person, and he struggled even more with mornings after his diagnosis. Getting out of bed before the sun came up seemed to increase his confusion. He kept forgetting where they were going and didn’t believe Heidi when she repeatedly told him about the trip. He even asked a flight attendant where the plane was going and doubted her answer. The combination of traveling and being up early made for an awful experience–for them both.

Heidi’s husband also struggled with the tours and planned events on their vacation. He was used to “downtime” at certain points during the day. One day they were on a bus tour (at a time when he would typically be sitting on the couch watching TV) when he become confused and panicked. They had to get off the bus and call a cab to get back to the hotel.

Heidi realized that maybe the trip itself had just been too much for him, but she also realized that she could have been more sensitive to his prime time when she planned. She assumed he’d be able to adjust. He would have been able to adjust a few years back, but she had to admit that his prime time had become important to the success of their activities.

And what about those with dementia who must adjust to life at a nursing home?

You won’t hear me knocking nursing homes as a whole. I know that there are great nursing homes, and there are not-so-great nursing homes–to put it nicely. Some of the kindest people I’ve ever met work in nursing homes. But there are a lot of downfalls to institutional living…

Although we are trending (too slowly) toward more individualized care, life at most nursing homes is quite scheduled. Meals are offered at certain times. You are expected to get up and go to bed at certain times. Activities are on the calendar. These events are often not dictated by an individual’s preferences but by the convenience of the facility. And this is not a criticism of facilities…they are usually understaffed and attempt to plan in the most efficient way for all. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes about the greater good rather than the well-being of one individual.

However, attempting to adjust to this schedule can be hard for people with dementia. In fact, it would be difficult for anyone. I know plenty of people of all ages who enjoy sleeping in…but how does that work with the schedule at a nursing home? And what about night owls? How can you stay up and watch TV when your roommate goes to bed at 7 pm? As a professed afternoon-hater, I worry that all the best activities might happen in the afternoon when I would prefer them in the morning. Individuals with dementia may struggle to make these adjustments–even more than the rest of us.

To function in the “normal” world, we are forced to play by the rules. I sometimes have important meetings at 2 pm. When I have to do reports at work, I may only have an afternoon time slot to get them done. That’s the way life is, and I adjust. After all, I’d like to keep my job.

However, adjustments may be more difficult for those with dementia. Someone who struggles with having a conversation may do well when they have visitors during their prime time but find conversation more taxing at a different time of day. If Grandma wants to go grocery shopping but sometimes finds it overwhelming, it may be useful to make sure she goes during her prime time. And if Mom typically takes a nap in the afternoon, it might not be best to plan the family Christmas celebration at 3 pm.

It sounds simple, and it is–really. If you are a professional or family caregiver, help people with dementia create schedules that work with (not against) their prime time. Be conscious of times when people may not be at their best. Consider the individual’s priorities and assist them in managing their time in a way that uses their best moments to maximize those priorities.

And do the same for yourself.

Mean Listening Face in Dementialand (or the Importance of Non-Verbal Communication)

alzheimer's, caregiver, caregiving, dementia, dementialand, pwd, , ,

I was diagnosed by my husband as having an affliction called Mean Listening Face about four years ago.

A college student that I had in class previously was at our house for pizza. She was telling me about how she had recently applied for a few positions at non-profit agencies. She looked at me and stopped in the middle of a sentence.

“Oh, is that not a good place to work?” she asked me. I had no idea why she was asking me this.

My husband jumped in and said matter-of-factly, “Elaine isn’t intending to give you that look of disapproval. She just has Mean Listening Face.”

This was the first I had heard of my Mean Listening Face. I didn’t argue with my husband, and there was no further discussion of this affliction between the two of us.

A few days later, I was out to lunch with a friend. I decided to ask her if I had Mean Listening Face. I anticipated that she would ask me what the heck I was talking about and then tell me that my husband was crazy.

Instead, she said, “Yeah, I totally see where he’s coming from. I don’t know if you’d make a good counselor.” I went from being annoyed that my husband was overanalyzing my behavior to wondering why no one had told me this sooner. Seriously, friends…you should’ve done an intervention long before this.

I went home and looked in the mirror. I tried to pretend that someone was telling me something important and personal. Sure enough, I got these lines on my forehead and my eyes got intensely squinty. Yep. I had Mean Listening Face.

I realized that when I concentrated on what someone was saying…when I really wanted them to know that I cared…when I was processing what they were saying with all of my attention…I looked annoyed. I looked angry. I looked like I was trying to shoot bolts of fire out of my eyeballs. It’s a great face for playing cards when I don’t want anyone to know what I’m holding, but not a great face for empathetic listening.

You might think this is a small thing, but it’s really not. College students come to my office and need assistance. They may be struggling with college life or feeling like they don’t belong. They might not know what major to choose or what direction they want to go in life. I’ve even had students who are dealing with depression or anxiety. And what do I do? I give them Mean Listening Face.

And then there’s the work I do with dementia caregivers. In my conversations with them, it occurred to me that I might be giving off Mean Listening Face when they were depending on me to reassure them. Most of all, my husband’s diagnosis of my Mean Listening Face made me realize that perhaps I wasn’t giving off the vibe I intended to when I spent time with individuals with dementia. As dementia progresses, the words themselves become less important. The non-verbal cues become more important. In time, they become everything.

It’s about body language. It’s about facial expression. It’s about tone of voice. Dementia can destroy a person’s capacity to understand language. However, the ability to decipher the non-verbal aspects of communication remain much longer.

And the non-verbals are pretty important for those of us who don’t live in Dementialand. I have to admit that I get annoyed with college students who sit in class and roll their eyes at me. (I have actually dropped my attendance policy because I prefer students who roll their eyes at me just not come to class.) Then there are those who sit in the front row and make eye contact. When a student asks for a letter of recommendation, I have to wonder if their non-verbal communication with me is just as important (if not more important) than their verbal communication.

I had a series of several doctor appointments and an ER visit last spring that ended in a diagnosis of a separated rib. (Apparently you can have a separated rib even if you have no idea that you’ve had a traumatic event that may have caused a separated rib.) This was after misdiagnoses of a hernia, a kidney stone, and a urinary tract infection. Visiting several doctors in a span of a few weeks made me realize the importance of non-verbal communication in the medical industry. One doctor who saw me made me feel like everything I said was important to him. He made me feel like he genuinely was concerned about my level of pain. After leaving the office, I realized that he hadn’t said anything different than the other doctors I visited. It was how he said it.

While receiving the “right” non-verbals can make your day, receiving the “wrong” non-verbals really put you in a foul mood. I recently sat on an airplane next to a person who made it his goal to take up as much of my personal space as humanly possible. Without exchanging a word, we engaged in a battle. It was a battle of non-verbals. A battle of physical space. A battle over tray tables, carry-on space, and arm rests. A battle that I lost and let ruin my afternoon. I’m getting angry again as I think about it. Yet, not a single word exchanged during the two hour flight.

I’ve heard that 70% of communication is non-verbal. My theory is that this percentage increases as dementia progresses. When someone approaches end-stage dementia, how we say something is more crucial that what we say. And showing people that what they say is still valued–by eye contact, posture, facial expression, and touch–may be more important than our verbal response. People read physical cues long after they become unable to decipher words and sentences.

Last year I was visiting an adult day center and talking to a guy with vascular dementia, Bob. Bob is one of my favorite people. He is what I like to call “pleasantly confused.” He cannot tell you what year it is or where he is. In fact, he once asked me if I had come to see him so I could “shave his sheep.” (His family later told me that he had not been a farmer and had never owned any sheep.) Everything he says, however, is delivered with a huge grin. He has a laugh that lights up the room–even if the people in the room have no idea what is so funny.

Bob was telling me a story about a dog he had that ran away and came back home with a litter of kittens and a baby skunk. I have no idea if this story was true, partially true, or not true at all, but it was a really good story. And I had no interest in figuring out if it was true. It didn’t matter. It was the funniest story I had heard in a long time. However, I had to be back at the office for a meeting, so I took a quick glance over Bob’s shoulder at the clock.

“You’re in a hurry,” he said, stopping the story. “You’ve got things to do. You’d better go.”

My heart sank. I was upset at myself for giving Bob the impression that I was in a hurry and spending time with him was not a priority. Furthermore, it blew my mind that a guy who seemed so out-of-touch with reality noticed my split-second sneak peak at the clock. I was busted. On that day, I failed with my non-verbals, and I ruined a great story.

I’m working on my Mean Listening Face. It’s a conscious effort. When interacting with someone with dementia, I sometimes silently tell myself to relax my eyes and stop clenching my jaw. Actually, I do this when I’m talking to people who don’t have dementia as well. I’m hoping this will also help to prevent wrinkles as I age, but that’d just be icing on the cake. If you think you might also have Mean Listening Face, let me know. Perhaps we can start a support group.

Outside of Dementialand, words can connect us efficiently. Yet, the deepest and most intimate connections are based beyond words. No place is this more true than in Dementialand…where words often fail us. If we want to connect heart-to-heart with people as they move toward the end of their dementia journeys, we must sometimes forget words and speak a different language.

Friends Who Make Like Trees in Dementialand

alzheimer's, caregiver, caregiving, dementia, dementialand, dying,

In one of my college courses, I often found myself sitting directly behind an African-American woman who wore her hair in cornrows. I was fascinated by her cornrows and found them gorgeous. As a white girl who couldn’t even braid, I was amazed at how tiny and detailed the braids were, and one day I decided to tell her that.

I started with something like this: “I hope this doesn’t seem weird, but I have been sitting behind you for this whole semester and I just have to tell you how much I like your hair.”

She thanked me, and we talked about how long it took to do the braids. I’m not sure I’d say we were friends after this conversation, but we were at least “friendly.”

I didn’t think too much of our interaction until a few months later when I attended a panel discussion on campus. The panel discussion was on ethnic diversity. I remember sitting in the front row and looking at a long table of experts on ethnicity, discrimination, and social relationships.

The people on the panel talked extensively about things you should not say to individuals who are ethnic minorities. In the midst of this discussion, an African-American woman said that you should never ever–under any circumstances–say anything about a black woman’s hair (which, of course, I had recently done).

I also remember someone saying that you should never ask a question based on a racial stereotype. They gave two examples, which I clearly remember. First, you should not ask an Asian person if they play the piano. Second, you should not ask an African-American man if he plays sports. In addition to breaking the “rule” about talking about a black woman’s hair, I had also recently asked if an African-American man if he played basketball. To be fair, he was a college student who was about 6 foot 8 and was wearing basketball shorts around campus–but I had broken that “rule” as well. (And, yes, he was a college basketball player.)

I am sure that there were many useful points made at the panel discussion on diversity, but my 19-year-old brain wasn’t able to process all of them. Instead, I was stuck on how some things I had said could have been perceived as offensive. And it bothered me. A lot. I even asked my roommate, Erin, if she thought I was racist. (If I never thanked you at the time, Erin, I’d like to thank you now–more than a decade and a half later–for assuring me I was not a racist.)

I left the panel discussion afraid to talk to people who were different from me. I worried that I would say the wrong thing, even if I was well-meaning. Obviously, that wasn’t the purpose of the panel discussion, but it was the impact it had on me at that point in time. I thought maybe it was better to not interact with someone than to say the wrong thing to them.

In a way, I had felt like that before in a very different situation. I had a friend in middle school whose mother passed away from cancer. I didn’t know what to say to her, so I avoided her. I didn’t go to her mom’s funeral. I saw her in the hallways at school and walked the other way. I saw her as different than me…I had a mom and now she didn’t. I had no idea how to relate to her. I didn’t want to make the situation worse.

We don’t know what to say to people who are different from us in some way, so we don’t say anything at all. We think it’s better to say nothing than to say the wrong thing. We feel more comfortable abandoning people than risking a situation where we might flounder or say something stupid.

I lost one of the best friends I’ve ever had, Sandi, to cancer almost a year ago. I remember sitting at her kitchen table last summer as she told me that she would see people she knew in the grocery store and they’d escape to another aisle so they didn’t have to chat with her. It made me angry. Yet, I don’t want to think that all of those “avoiders” were terrible people. I think that many of them avoided her because of their own fears and insecurities. I have to wonder if they just didn’t know what to say–so they didn’t want to have to say anything. It still bothers me that people were uncomfortable seeing Sandi after her diagnosis, especially because she was the type of person who was really good at making everyone around her feel comfortable and at ease.

It bothers me that we run away from people who need support because we worry we are going to say the wrong thing or because of our own issues. When I talk to people who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or a related dementia, they often tell me that friends just disappear. It makes me sad. However, I’m an optimist at heart, and I can’t think that all of these people who disappear are awful human beings. Most of the avoidance of those who have dementia is based on fear. Fear of awkwardness. Fear of not knowing what to say. Fear of doing the wrong thing. Fear of the same thing happening to us. Sometimes being there for someone takes us out of our comfort zone. We need to do it anyway.

And I can apply those same thoughts to situations where people have other serious illnesses, are caregivers, and have lost a loved one. (I notice when someone has lost a loved one support peaks at the time of death and the funeral….and then abruptly decreases as life returns to “normal” and there is no socially mandated way to support someone.) We feel inadequate to help people, so we don’t even try.

On a personal note, I have a family member with a serious mental illness. At times, I’ve felt avoided by people I thought were friends. Looking back, I’m sure they were uncomfortable and didn’t know how to support me, so they just thought it was better to make themselves scarce. The people who reached out to me when things were rough weren’t always the people I expected, but I will never forget who they were. They didn’t know the perfect thing to say or do, but they reached out anyway.

It is not okay to avoid people who are struggling because we are afraid. Sometimes it’s gonna be awkward. Sometimes we won’t know what to say. Sometimes we will say something that doesn’t come out right. And sometimes we will have a major foot-in-the-mouth situation. (I’ve had many….) But it’s okay.

I’ve seen some articles online with titles like “10 Things Not to Say to Someone with Cancer” or “What You Should Never Say to Someone with Alzheimer’s.” I appreciate the notion, but I also wonder if articles like this increase our anxiety about interacting with someone who has a serious illness. Instead of focusing on making a positive difference (what we should say and do), we become more censored, more hesitant–because we don’t want to say the wrong thing. Sometimes I feel like telling us what not to say to someone makes us feel like the distance between us and them is much larger than it really is.

Here are my rules for supporting someone with dementia and their family (and you can apply these rules to others who might be struggling as well):

1. You will say the wrong thing. Just accept that at some point you will say something stupid.

2. There is no right thing to say anyway. No matter what you say, the person will still have dementia. What you say or do can’t fix that. (You aren’t that powerful.)

3. After you’ve accepted that you will say the wrong thing and you can’t cure illnesses, keep showing up–literally and figuratively.

Last week, I had breakfast with a woman whose husband has Alzheimer’s. She told me that she really only had one friend these days. All of her other friends had (as she said) “made like trees and left.” However, she managed to not be bitter. She explained that she knew it was hard for them to spend time with her and her husband. She realizes she and her husband are a scary reminder of what could be in her friends’ futures.

“They don’t know how to act,” she told me. “The life I’m living right now is terrifying to them. I get it and I’m okay with it.”

Maybe she was okay with it, but her justification of their absence made me feel like crying.

Welcome to the Real and Non-Perfect Dementialand World (and What to Say if You Want to Make Me Super Angry)

aging, alzheimer's, caregiver, caregiving, , ,

I overheard a bunch of people chatting before a support group meeting. There was a middle-aged guy updating some other family care partners about his wife with dementia. I need to tell you that I am going to change a few details here so this person isn’t as identifiable. It’s pretty typical that I do this, but I’m making a special effort here because I need to tell you about something he said that had me pretty bent out of shape.

The man was well-dressed and handsome. He seemed confident, and I could tell that he was a long-standing member of the group that others looked to for support. I couldn’t help but think he looked a bit like a younger-ish Harrison Ford…think somewhere between Star Wars and The Fugitive. 

He explained that his wife was continuing to live at home, although her condition was progressing. She was now unable to walk without assistance. She needed help with bathing, toileting, and eating. He told the group that his friends and siblings were trying to convince him to considering placing her in a nursing home, but he “could never do anything like that to his wife.”

“I love her too much to put her in a place like that,” he said, shaking his head with a huge emphasis on the word “that.”

I know he loved his wife. I know he was committed to keeping her at home because he cared about her. Yet his comments made me cringe. I cringed because a lot of people love their family members with dementia but are unable to keep them at home. I cringed even more because I knew he was talking directly to some of the people who were unable to keep their loved ones at home, and I worried he was making them feel like crap. Everyone’s situation is different, and his comment came off as judgmental considering his audience.

I do a good job of biting my lip in such situations, but my husband tells me I don’t have much of a poker face. I’m sure I was glaring at this guy. If looks could kill, he would’ve dropped dead before the support group meeting even started.

I have no doubt that this gentleman was a tremendous care partner for his wife. However, he also had some resources that helped him keep her at home; some resources that not all care partners have. First, he was in his late 40’s and in good physical condition. He was able to lift his wife, who happened to be much smaller than he was.

I found out later that he was a successful business owner in the town I was visiting. Although he had a busy career, he could often work at home and had the ability to make his own schedule. In addition, he had the financial resources to hire in-home assistance for a several hours a day. Furthermore, he seemed to have friends and family who were willing and able to come over to give him a break when he needed one.

I give the guy a lot of credit. He had a system in place that allowed him to keep his wife at home at a point when many people with dementia have transitioned to a nursing home. It took organization and dedication, and I have no doubt he did it out of love. He had the option to keep her at home. It’s wonderful he was able to do so, but it isn’t the right decision or a feasible alternative for everyone.

I have to be honest and tell you that his line about “loving her too much to put her in a place like that” really stung. I don’t think he meant to offend, but that doesn’t change the fact that it just plain hurt. It stung professionally because I work with many family care partners who must make the choice to place a loved one with dementia in a facility–not because they don’t love them–but because it is the best option they have with the resources they have available.

It’s a rough choice to make, and I spend a lot of time telling these care partners that they need to let go of the guilt. I care about these people, believe they love their family members, and know how hard they’ve tried to make the right decisions on a difficult road.

Perhaps it also stung me personally. My grandma spent a short time in a nursing home at the end of her life. Although I’m sure he didn’t mean to, this guy had implied that my family didn’t love her enough. We did love her enough. That guy should be glad I didn’t tell all my cousins about his comment.

Love is important. I don’t know what life is without love. Yet, love doesn’t erase our financial, physical, and emotional limitations. We can’t all quit our jobs to care for a loved one 24/7, and not everyone has a flexible work schedule. I talked to a care partner who recently told me that she had exhausted all of her vacation taking her mom back and forth to Mayo Clinic to see a neurologist–before her mom even had an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Her boss had told her if she had to leave work again due to a crisis with her mom, she’d be fired.

Some care partners have kids. The other day I talked to a stay-at-home mom who takes care of her three young children during the day. It seems as if some members of her family have assumed she can help her mother-in-law with dementia during the day….because she doesn’t work. (I have to be honest in telling you that taking care of three small children seems like more work than what I do at work.) Even the most amazing women have their limits.

Sometimes in our attempts to keep our loved ones with dementia at home, we overlook potentially risky situations. They may be risky to the person with dementia (e.g., wandering, falling down stairs), but they may also be risky to the care partner. It’s no secret that caregiving for someone with dementia can take a toll on a care partner’s heath. I’m talking about both physical and mental health. (No matter how much tiny women love their spouses with dementia, they still can’t lift large men without getting hurt. And people need sleep.)

I can show you research that supports this, but I’ve seen plenty of first-hand evidence as well. Often, it is not a change in the person with dementia’s health that triggers placement in a facility. People with dementia frequently move to nursing homes because their loved ones have increased health concerns and can no longer provide care.

I recently met a school counselor whose husband has Lewy-Body dementia. She knows he will soon need 24/7 care, and she understands that it is not realistic, considering her family situation, that he will stay at home for the duration of his disease. She is struggling with the right time to transition him to an assisted living.

I was livid when I found out that one of her immediate family members had said to her, “If he were my husband, I’d quit my job to keep him at home.” I’m pretty sure she could see the veins in my forehead when she told me this… Sure, if you are financially able to quit your job and this is the right option for you, that’s fantastic. But this is the real world. Who is going to pay the mortgage? And this particular woman said that her job was the only thing keeping her sane on this journey.

Someone I know said something a few weeks ago that has stuck with me. I had what Oprah would call an “aha moment.” This woman told me that her daughter had been raped decades earlier. After the rape, many people made comments that started with “If that were my daughter, I would….” Of course, they would then end the statement with something that she had not done. She promised herself that she’d never make a similar statement to someone who was going through a tough time. After she told me this, I made the same promise to myself.

I’ve heard many people say that they would never place a loved one in a long term care facility. If you want to see the veins in my neck pop out, say that to me. In a perfect world, we could confidently say we’d never make that choice. If this were a perfect world, I could say that my love would keep my family members from living in a nursing home. But this is not a perfect world. Love doesn’t keep people from getting sick or make them better, and it certainly doesn’t prevent nursing home admittance.

Here’s the take home message…You may have had to make the hard decision to transition your loved one to an assisted living, nursing home, or memory care community. (And if you aren’t there yet, this may be in your future, whether or not you realize it.) You probably struggled with it. You hoped the timing was right, but you’ll never know for sure. Some members of your family may have even disagreed with you on some aspects of this decision, and you had to defend your thinking…when you weren’t so sure yourself. There were probably moments where you felt like an awful person.

Don’t let anyone make you feel like you made the wrong call because it’s not the one they made or because they claim it’s not the one they would make if they were in your shoes. Maybe they made a different call, but they are a different person in a different situation. And if they haven’t had to make that call, they should shut up about what they would do–because they really don’t know.

You are not less of a care partner because your loved one lives at a facility. Your responsibilities may be a different than if your loved one lived with you, but you are not less competent, less caring, or less worthy. Don’t feel like a failure. Stop second-guessing yourself. Stop feeling guilty. Stop worrying you’re not a good wife, husband, sibling, daughter, son….

You did the best you could with the options that were available to you. Sometimes life presents us with a bunch of alternatives, and they all suck. (I’ve tried to rephrase that last sentence about ten times but I can’t come up with anything better. Sorry.) You have to pick the one that sucks the least, for you and for the people you love. And then you move on and make the best of it.

Welcome to the real and non-perfect world.

Following Up in Dementialand

cancer, caregiving, death, dementia, dying, , , , ,

Several months ago I wrote a blog post about why I dislike the movie, The Notebook. In short, I take issue with how it presents Alzheimer’s. On an unrelated note, I think it promotes stalking as romance.

You can read all about it here:

https://welcometodementialand.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/my-least-favorite-dementialand-movie/

I had no idea the Facebook messages and emails I would get after this post. Sure, some people agreed with me. Other people sent me comments like:

“Chill, honey, it’s just a movie.”

“So what if it’s not realistic. It’s a damn movie. Relax.”

“You don’t seem to understand the purpose of a movie. Why do people have to overanalyze everything and take away all the fun?” 

I was surprised that this post caused a stir, but I’ve realized that I’m a poor judge of which of my blog posts people will be controversial. I never would have guessed that my post about The Notebook would earn me the most hate of all 50-some posts I have written. People acted like I was killing kittens. And I can laugh about this now…

I predicted that Monday’s post about care partners who pray for their loved ones to pass away would offend someone. I thought I’d get a few emails from people who didn’t like the way I presented this, or maybe were just uncomfortable with the whole premise.

I got a little bit of feedback on Monday morning, mostly from people who said they could relate to the post. A few people thanked me, and in general people said reading the piece made them feel a bit more comfortable with their experience of wishing a loved one would die–rather than continue to live a life that they were pretty certain wasn’t worth living. I went for a run and checked my email when I got back. And whoa.

I had a lot of emails. Nineteen to be exact. They were from individuals who had experiences to share that related to the blog piece. Many of the emails were from care partners or former care partners of those living with dementia. However, quite a few of the emails were from those who had lost a loved one to cancer or another illness. And I thank those of you who gave me permission to share parts of your emails and Facebook messages. (A few people also posted very insightful comments on the actual blog post, if you are interested.)

Here are excerpts from the messages I received:

“My mother in law lives with us and has vascular dementia. I hate to say it, but I’m ready for her to pass away. It’d be different if I thought she had any joy in her life now. But I don’t think she does. There is a time when somebody is just done. She’s done. But her body is still here. I haven’t told my husband this. I don’t know if he’s there yet.”

“I have felt guilty for years because my mom was dying of cancer and I wished it would just be over. I prayed for her suffering to be done. Then when she died I felt awful. Not because she was gone but because I prayed for her to be gone. But she was suffering. I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

“My mom has Alzheimer’s and she has had it for about 10 years. The first 5 or so years she was happy. Now she’s not. She lives in terror. I know it must be scary for her. It’s scary for me. I just want it to be over. I want the nursing home to call me and tell me she’s gone. When the phone rings, I hope they are calling to say she’s gone. Maybe that’s awful, but it’s the truth.”

“My dad doesn’t want to be here anymore. He has cancer and Alzheimer’s. We don’t make our animals suffer. We know the kindest thing is to end their suffering. But people have to suffer until the bitter end and we have to watch it….Dad asks me to help him end it in a joking way. He says I should just shoot him and laughs. But I wish I really could.”

“For many years I have felt bad about praying for my mom to die when she was at the end of her life. The doctor kept giving her antibiotics and meds. I wanted them to stop giving her the medicines but I didn’t know how to tell them that and was scared they’d think I was a bad person. So I kept giving her all these medicines but hoping they wouldn’t work…Reading this made me feel more normal.”

“My mom had Alzheimer’s and I prayed she’d die for over a year. After she finally passed, I missed being in dementialand. I guess I got used to living there. I also felt useless like no one needed me. I didn’t know how much I needed to be needed.”

“Amen. My husband is at the end of dementia and has COPD. He is tired. I am tired. I don’t eat, I don’t sleep, he doesn’t know what’s going on. I want to fast forward time. If I had a remote control I’d hit fast forward. Then I think about how I know that after he’s gone I will want to rewind but still can’t stop from wanting to hit fast forward. Don’t know how to change how I feel.”

“I thought I would feel sad when my sister died of Alzheimer’s but I didn’t. I really just felt mostly relief. But I still feel horrible that I felt relief. I feel like a good sister would’ve been sad. This blog post helps a little.”

I usually feel good when I write something that people “get.” If people say they can relate to something I write, I feel like I’ve been successful. However, I didn’t get that feeling as I read through people’s comments on this one.

I just felt…sad.

Praying for the End in Dementialand

alzheimer's, caregiver, caregiving, death, dementia, dying, , , , , , ,

I was 23 when my grandpa passed away. He had a lot of chronic health conditions, including diabetes, and he’d recently had a leg amputated. The last time I saw him in person, he kept calling the guy I was dating at the time “Steve” (although his name was not Steve) and he was very grateful to “Steve” for helping him figure out the remote control to his crappy TV at the hospital. The last time I talked to him on the phone, he was telling me about a church picnic that he had attended. He mentioned he brought brownies in a basket. There had been no church picnic.

I remember sitting on the bed in my small grad school apartment with my black cat, Teela, as my mom called me to tell he that he died. It seems surreal that I still have Teela (although now she has three doggie brothers and a feline sister–oh, and a dad!) and am looking at her in her kitty condo as I type this today. It seems so long ago, but I guess it wasn’t that long ago because I still have Teela–although she is a bit heavier and moves slower…I could say the same about myself though.

I asked my mom if she thought I should call my grandma to express my condolences. To be honest, I wanted her to tell me not to bother Grandma. I was a little nervous to make the call. I didn’t know what to say. When Grandma answered the phone, she launched into a story about the Red Roof Inn she was staying at near my grandpa’s hospital. She had spent a lot of nights there, and they were kind enough to not charge her for the night my grandpa died. She was absolutely overwhelmed by their kindness. I think of this every time I see a Red Roof Inn to this day.

I didn’t really know what to say when she paused after praising the employees of the Red Roof Inn, so I blurted out, “I’m sorry about Grandpa.”

“Oh, honey,” she said. “I was praying for the Lord to take him. I knew he wasn’t gonna be strong enough to come home after losing that leg. It was the best thing.”

The best thing?

At that point in time, I had this idea that we all should fight for our lives to the bitter end. I saw death as failure, not as a natural part of life. And I wasn’t sure what I thought of someone hoping and praying for a loved one to pass away.

In a way, I was glad my grandma accepted my grandpa’s death on some level. On the other hand, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the notion that my grandma prayed for my grandpa to die. I can assure you that the experiences I have had between then and now have absolutely allowed me to wrap my mind around this.

I was speaking with a woman recently whose husband has a type of dementia that can progress very quickly. I pointed out that this rare type of dementia has a shorter life expectancy than Alzheimer’s and most other types of dementia. I had only known this woman for about…3 minutes…so I worried that I’d said too much and was perhaps being a bit pessimistic and blunt when I had no idea where she was at with this.

“Oh, thank God,” she said. “The quicker this progresses, the better.” Then she looked horrified, like she couldn’t believe she said this to me.

There are many people who live well with dementia. Unfortunately, her husband is currently not one of them. And she wants this over as soon as possible, for him and for her.

Then she asked, “Am I a bad person for wishing he dies sooner rather than later?”

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. It seemed like a question for a ethicist, pastor, or philosopher rather than for me. All I could do was reassure her that her feelings were normal considering the circumstances. She was absolutely right that he seems to have little quality of life. He spends most of his day in their bed–but with his eyes open–and he gets upset if she tries to turn on the lights or the TV. He recently told their kids that he was sorry he ever had them, and he had even become aggressive toward one of his grandchildren. She also pointed out that he’d be really upset if he realized that all the money he had worked so hard to save would likely be eaten up by a nursing home.

So, are you a bad person for hoping that your loved one with late-stage dementia passes away rather than lingers on? Absolutely not. This is normal. It’s also normal that you might wish for them to pass away in one moment but in the next minute be willing to do anything to keep them on this earth.

And when they do die, it is normal to feel guilty that you wished that they would pass away and then want them back. It is normal to feel a variety of emotions when a loved one with dementia dies, but one of those emotions may be relief. And–no–none of this makes you a bad person. It makes you human.

If someone says to me that they want their loved one to “go quickly” or “leave soon” or any other euphemism we can use to avoid the actual term “death,” it may be partially from a selfish place–because being a care partner is demanding.

However, I find that more frequently it has nothing to do with the care partner and everything to do with the person with dementia. While some people with dementia live a life worth living right up until the moment they depart, we cannot say that everyone with dementia has a positive quality of life from dementia to death. It’s just not true. Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, Lewy-Body Dementia, frontotemporal dementia…these can be cruel diseases.

When we look at our loved ones and see depression, anxiety, and pain (physical and emotional), we may hope for death. Don’t beat yourself up if you pray every night for God to peacefully take your parent, spouse, or sibling. No judgment here. And if you attend a dementia caregiving support group and mention that you are ready for your loved one to pass away, you will see a chorus of nods and knowing looks.

I fully anticipate that this post will offend someone. And I am offended as well. I am offended that dementia causes such suffering that one would at some point hope for death for a family member or friend–and that as a society we haven’t been empathetic or supportive enough to those in the midst of this journey.

Contradictory Advice in Dementialand

alzheimer's, caregiving, dementia,

I was recently talking to someone who worked at the Alzheimer’s Association about some of the challenges of working with families and individuals affected by dementia. I mentioned that I feel like I give people contradictory advice. First, I tell them to live in the moment. Second, I tell them to plan for the future. Sometimes I give those two pieces of advice in the same sentence or on the same Powerpoint slide.

“But isn’t that what we really all should be trying to do?” said the woman I was talking to. “Whether we have dementia or not, shouldn’t we enjoy the moment but also prepare for the future?”

It occurred to me that she was absolutely right—life is about balancing the short-term and the long-term. Your short-term self wants to have a piece of cake and enjoy the moment. Your long-term self wants to consider your health and avoid the cake. Enjoying the moment too much could potentially be a detriment to your plan for the future, but if you’re always planning ahead and never have any fun, what’s the point of life?

I’ve sometimes struggled with the balance between enjoying the moment and planning ahead. I remember telling friends in college that I couldn’t go out one night because I had to work on a paper. They asked if the paper was due the next day. Nope. It was due in three weeks. I just wanted to get a jump on it. (I wasn’t very much fun in college. I’m a lot more fun now, actually.) Yet, as a college professor, I see a lot of students who error in the other direction in the balance between enjoying the moment and planning ahead. The point is that it’s a balance. You want to have fun in college, but you can’t have so much fun that you screw yourself over in the future.

Living in the moment has always been easier said than done for me. I don’t live much in the past. I don’t spend a lot of time replaying and regretting my decisions. It’s not that I’ve always made the right choices. It’s just that looking back can be a waste of time, and I don’t like to waste time. However, I’ve tried to live in the future. I’ve played the “I’ll be happy when….” game. I’ll be happy when I finish this marathon. I’ll be happy when I finish my PhD. And, spoiler alert, after both of things were accomplished…I was no happier. It has been my journey in working with people who have dementia that has taught me to live, laugh, and love in the moment–or at least to take a big step in that direction. I’m still a work in progress.

But there is a risk to always living in the moment. In order to maximize the possibility of success in the future, we sometimes have to do stuff that doesn’t bring us much joy in the moment. We have to pay bills when we want to spend our money on things that make us happy NOW. We can’t eat what we want all the time…or we end up fat and unhealthy. We have to go to work because if we don’t go we will get fired. If we all did exactly what we needed to do to enjoy every moment to the fullest, we’d all be broke, fat, and unemployed. It’s about immediate gratification versus delayed gratification. It’s about what we want to do versus what we should do.

Everyone has that one friend who is a lot of fun. They may be the life of the party. Maybe they drink a little too much. Maybe they don’t always make the best decisions (e.g., cheating on a partner, taking a few too many “liberties” with their job). Their life is sort of a train wreck. If you think about it, they live in the moment a little too much–without thought to the consequences. If you knew me in college, you may have seen me sitting awkwardly in the corner at parties admiring this person…thinking they seemed pretty cool and wishing I had their moxie. Now, more than a decade later, I’m thinking maybe my envy was a bit misguided. I guess life is all about balance.

A family negotiating dementia walks a fine line. My advice to them is all over the place. Find something to smile about. Start researching local nursing homes. Don’t be afraid to laugh. Talk about end of life decision making. Go over your finances. Plan some fun things to do together. Figure out what’s available from local agencies for respite care. I’m sure sometimes they want to punch me. I don’t blame them.

A family that focuses too much on living in the moment might be unprepared for the challenges ahead. They may have to choose a sub-par nursing home because they didn’t have a plan. They might have to make decisions about care in crisis mode. A family that focuses too much on preparing for the future might regret missing out on joyful time that could be spent together because they are dreading the decline of their loved one.

And I have to be honest here… If you have dementia or have a loved one who has dementia, there will be moments of joy and hope. However, there will be moments where you can’t find that joy and hope, even when you look as hard as you can possibly look. Those are the moments you just gotta survive. You have to make it to the next moment–where maybe that joy and hope will be within reach again.

There are days when you can smile and laugh. Then there are days where you just gotta hope that tomorrow is a little better. That’s the thing about living in the present….living in the present is great when you can find joy in the present. When you can’t find joy in the present, it’s okay to look to the future a little bit. And maybe that future is only five minutes away. Perhaps there’s something right around the corner that’s going to make you smile and laugh. You have to believe that.

I am working summer orientation right now. I do advising for incoming freshmen. The more I think about it, I realize that I give similar advice to individuals and families impacted by dementia and to college freshmen. I state it a little bit differently. I tell freshmen to have fun but not so much fun that they have to go back home and live in their parents’ basement. I tell those affected by dementia that they need to focus on the moment but set themselves up for success (and as little stress as possible) in the future.

But we all need to enjoy the moment while we prepare for the future.

As for me, I no longer opt out of fun events to work on things that aren’t due for another three weeks. In fact, I’ve gotten better at procrastinating. It’s all about balance.

Habits of Sane Caregivers in Dementialand

aging, alzheimer's, caregiver, caregiving, death, dementia, dying, families, hospice, lewy body dementia, pwd, , , , , , , ,

Sometimes I write for people with dementia. Sometimes I write for people who have no experience in Dementialand. But today…today I am writing for dementia caregivers. And, really, for all caregivers.

If you are a caregiver, things can get pretty rough. I can show you research studies on the rates of clinical depression among caregivers. Spoiler alert–they’re astronomical. (They’re high among caregivers and higher among caregivers of those with dementia.)

Your life has to be lived one day at a time…maybe even one minute at a time. You get angry. You want to say that you’re angry at the disease and not the person, but I know that sometimes it’s not always easy to separate a person and a disease when you’re living on a couple hours of sleep a night.

All caregivers struggle. Some struggle outwardly; others seems strong on the outside but bury their struggles inwardly. You are not alone in your struggle–but I know it seems that way sometimes. Maybe your family is supportive, but it’s likely some of them make your life more difficult rather than easier. I’m guessing some of them make you crazy. Maybe you’ve got some friends…but some of them probably just don’t get it, even if they try.

I’ve put together a list of habits that I typically see in caregivers that maintain their sanity. [And–let me state for the record–a caregiver that stays sane might sometimes feel like they are losing their mind. They might cry. They might get angry. Maybe they sometimes make poor decisions. They mess up (we all do, right?). They could be on Lexapro or another anti-depressant. But they get through…day by day…minute by minute.]

Habits of Sane Caregivers

1. They sleep. Sure, maybe some nights are better than others. But they find a way to sleep. And, when they start getting an unacceptable amount of sleep each night on a regular basis, they find a solution. Maybe this means having someone watch their loved one a few afternoons a week so they can take a nap. If anxiety keeps them from sleeping, they go to a doctor or a counselor. They understand that they can’t caregive without sleep.

2. They leave the house. I know a guy who cared for his grandma who had Alzheimer’s. At one point, he went over a week without leaving the house except to shovel and take the trash out. When other people heard about this, they thought of him as a hero. Staying in the confines on your home doesn’t make you a hero. It sets you up for depression and stress–which sets you up for sub-par caregiving. Get the heck out of the house once in a while.

3. They understand that others can give care, too. A husband I once talked to loved his wife so much that he wouldn’t leave her side….24/7. He didn’t trust anyone else to take care of her. He thought he was the only one capable. He had plenty of people volunteering to come over and stay with his wife for a bit, but he declined their help. Let go of the idea that you are the only one that can provide care. Maybe someone else isn’t going to do things exactly the way you do them. That’s okay. Accept help.

4. They have a sense of humor. I don’t know what makes you laugh. Funny movies. Videos of cute cats on YouTube. Conversations with friends. Comic books. Sports bloopers. South Park. Figure out what makes you laugh and actively seek that out. And don’t feel guilty for laughing.

5. They go to the doctor. The people who are the best about getting their loved one to the doctor when needed are often the worst at seeing the doctor themselves. And if you aren’t healthy, you can’t provide care. So go to the doctor for small health issues…so you don’t end up with big ones. I talked to a guy once who had a sinus infection but wouldn’t go to the doctor because his wife was dying from cancer. His sinus infection didn’t seem important when he thought about what his wife was going through. Ironically, it was his wife who finally told him that he needed to get his butt to the doctor to get some antibiotics–because he was getting increasingly irritable (or “pissy” as she said) since he didn’t feel well. You do the people around you a favor when you take care of your health.

6. They don’t feel guilty. As a caregiver, you mess up. Maybe you thought your wife only needed one pain pill, but in retrospect you should have given her two. Perhaps you tried to make dinner and it was a flop. Or you messed up the time of your grandma’s appointment and she was 30 minutes late. You gotta move on. Consider it a learning experience. Caregiving involves a set of practical skills, and we get better at those skills over time. When you make a mistake, don’t beat yourself up. Learn from it and move on. You have a limited amount of energy. Guilt is a complete waste of energy.

7. They understand that the goal is to have a good day. They understand that their loved one will not “get better.” They are realistic in understanding that decline is inevitable in the case of Alzheimer’s, Frontotemporal dementia, or a terminal cancer. Yet they get that tomorrow can be a better day, even when their loved one isn’t improving.

8. They forget about people who aren’t supportive. They don’t continue to count on people who don’t come through. It doesn’t matter if those people are family or friends. It doesn’t matter if they have known they for decades. They stop letting those people disappoint them. They find new people to support them. Sane caregivers make a conscious effort to surround themselves with people who don’t screw them over time and time again. And when people do screw them over, they don’t spend a lot of time calling them out on it. They don’t have the time to waste on that type of thing. In short, they don’t do drama. 

And a few final notes. If you are a caregiver, listen to me here. It is okay to eat frozen pizza a couple nights a week. It is fine if sometimes you don’t return a phone call. Your neighbors will just have to deal with it if you don’t cut your lawn for ten days. Don’t be too hard on yourself if your flowers die because you forget to water them. (Tip: Buy hanging baskets of flowers. If they die, throw them away and buy new ones. It’s what I do.)

I once overheard two women who were caring for their husbands with Alzheimer’s having a conversation about the demands of their everyday lives.

“You know what we need to do?” one said to the other. “We need to stop feeling bad about all this stupid shit.”

Exactly. 

Passion in Dementialand (A Post About What Gets Us Excited)

aging, alzheimer's, caregiver, caregiving, dementia, dementialand, , , ,

A little passion goes a long way.

I’m not talking about relationships here. I’m talking about life. No one has passion for everything they do. We all have to do things that we don’t like doing. That’s part of living in the real world. But we gotta have passion for something or we’re sunk.

My passion is dementia. I don’t like dementia itself. In fact, I really don’t like dementia at all, but I get excited (maybe I should say “fired up”) about educating people about dementia and raising awareness. I cannot count the number of times I have been at a party and was engaged in an intriguing conversation about dementia with someone I had just met–except I was the only one “engaged” and probably the only one who found it “intriguing.”

My husband once joked that we might get invited to more social gatherings if I talked less about dementia. Or maybe he wasn’t joking. Someone once told me that everyone should be passionate enough about something to talk about it enthusiastically for a ridiculous amount of time at a party while boring everyone else in the room. Yep. I can do that.

When someone stops me at Target to ask a question about dementia and I don’t abandon my cart immediately to chat, there is a problem. You should worry about me. Maybe you should even considering planning an intervention of some type–because something’s not right.

I get excited about things other than talking about dementia. A part of me wants to tell you I’m passionate about classical music, art history, and expensive red wine, but I’m not. I’m passionate about college basketball, perfecting recipes for low-cal margaritas, and cheap white wine. (I’m known for buying wine on a clearance end cap at Walgreens. In my defense, our Walgreens has an underappreciated selection of alcohol.) And although these passions may seem less than refined to some, there’s no reason they are less valid.

Maybe you get the same feeling from listening to a full symphony that I do when someone on my team makes a three-pointer or takes a charge. It doesn’t really matter what triggers that feeling, as long as something does.

You may not be as passionate about this dementia stuff as I am (or maybe you are because you are reading this blog) and maybe you don’t like college basketball or cheap wine, but my wish for you is that you are passionate about something. For my stepfather who is a retired forester, it’s trees. If he ever shows up at our house and doesn’t sniff our trees to assess their health within an hour of arrival, I’m worried. One of my mom’s most interesting and notable hobbies is tie-dyeing. If you’ve seen pictures of her, you should know she tie-dyed those t-shirts herself. If I ever get out her tie-dye supplies and she says she’s not really interested in tie-dying, there’s an issue. I’m not saying that issue is dementia, although it could be. It might also be depression or perhaps another medical issue–or maybe just a simple rut. But I’m gonna wonder what’s going on.

When we think of dementia, we think of loss of memory. However, the more time I spend with people who have dementia, the more I realize that loss of passion (more than loss of memory) triggers hopelessness. If you wake up in the morning and have something to be excited about–no matter how big or small it is–there’s hope.

When I think about the individuals I know with dementia, I see many that have held onto a passion or developed a new passion. I know a guy who struggles to remember his wife’s name, but when he’s told that the St. Louis Cardinals play tonight, he’s excited. There’s a woman with Alzheimer’s who used to be a master gardener. She still finds joy in watering the flowers at the adult day center she goes to five days a week. And then there’s the family that tried to stop their grandma from reorganizing her closet every single day–because she had just done it the day before. However, organizing was her passion. It’s what she was excited to do when she woke up in the morning.

I find that families sometimes try to shut down the passions of their loved ones with dementia. Maybe they don’t seem purposeful or legitimate. Maybe they aren’t the same passions that the person had ten years ago. But here’s the thing…and this is advice that works both in and out of Dementialand…

We are not qualified to judge the validity of someone else’s passion. 

I have a friend who is a member of what we call the “sandwich generation.” She is sandwiched in caring for her mother with Alzheimer’s and her young children. One day she noticed her daughter and her mother playing together in the sandbox at a park. At first, she thought about how it looked like a typical grandmother-grandchild interaction. Then her young daughter left the sandbox, and grandma stayed there–playing like a child. My friend sat sitting on a bench, watching her own mother play in a sandbox all alone. She wasn’t quite sure what to think. Then she realized her mother was smiling as she sculpted pictures and designs in the sand with a rake.

You rarely see adults playing alone in sandboxes at city parks, so my friend was not entirely comfortable with this. However, as she thought about it more, she realized it really wasn’t all that different from a monk in a Zen garden raking sand as a part of their meditation. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that playing in a sandbox is no less valuable than how I spend my free time–watching college kids try to put a ball through a hoop.

She kept bringing her mom and her kids back to that same park. She learned to ignore the people who stared at the smiling woman raking alone in the sandbox.

We are not qualified to judge the validity of someone else’s passion. 

I have a lot of friends (both with and without dementia) who have passions that I don’t really get. I don’t have to get their passions to support them in pursuing their passions. And it doesn’t matter what they get excited about as long as they get excited about something. And who am I to say what they get excited about doing is any less valid than what I get excited about doing?

Because of the impact dementia has on the brain, people with Alzheimer’s and related diseases may become apathetic. Often we say someone has “given up,” but that’s not really the case. It’s an actual symptom. The less scientific explanation is that the part of the brain that control motivation and excitement is damaged. Sometimes I will see someone who has “dimmed.” They can’t get interested in stuff that used to interest them–and they can’t find anything to replace those interests.

People who struggle to remember and understand their surroundings may find it hard to be excited about much of anything as dementia progresses, but there are cases when passion remains although memory may have declined. And when that happens, there is a sort of beauty that amazes me.

I often think of a woman who told me about her mother with dementia that didn’t remember she had grandchildren. Her mother eventually moved in with her family and every single morning would seem a little bit surprised to see a couple of small children in the kitchen. When the kids would call her grandma, she would be over the moon–as excited as, well, a new grandma.

“Oh my goodness!” she would exclaimed. “Are these my beautiful grandchildren?”

She didn’t remember she was a grandma, but she still managed to be pretty passionate about it. The most amazing part of this is that her family chose to focus on her passion for being a grandma rather than her need to be reminded everyday that she was a grandma. Rather than being sad that she didn’t remember her grandchildren, they focused on the look of excitement on her face when she realized those grandkids were her grandkids. It was her enthusiasm that allowed them to cope with her loss of memory.

A little passion goes a long way.