Category Archives: dementialand

The Good Life in Dementialand

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I met a woman at an event who told me that when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s she was given one and only one piece of advice from her doctor. It was that she shouldn’t let anyone put in a feeding tube when she reached the end-stage of the disease. REALLY?!?!?

I am generally not a fan of feeding tubes in most case of end-stage Alzheimer’s, but that’s irrelevant. What is bothersome is that this is the one bit of advice her doctor could muster. That’s it. The woman told me that she felt like she should stop by Walgreens and buy adult diapers on the way home–or maybe just check herself directly into a nursing home.

There may be a point where she and her family are faced with decisions about feeding tubes. And those are important decisions. I am huge proponent for discussing end-of-life options with families and medical professionals. However, they are not issues that need to be considered five minutes after being told of your diagnosis. I’m not sure I’ve ever used the phrase “putting the cart before the horse” before, but there’s a first time for everything.

As this woman told me about her doctor’s “advice,” she stood in front of me looking like any “typical” middle-aged woman. She was wearing a long flowery dress and heels. There was no wheelchair, no walker, no cane… If you saw her at the grocery store, you’d never guess she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. There was definitely no feeding tube in sight.

I asked her how long ago she was diagnosed. She told me it had been about four years. Four years and still no need to consider the feeding tube. Four years and still living pretty well (although a little bit differently) most of the time.

It occurred to me that her doctor had told her how to die from Alzheimer’s. However, there was no one to tell her how to live with the disease.

From my perspective, we struggle to bridge that gap. Often there is much time to live between diagnosis and the drooling, bed-bound, disconnected individual that many of us picture when we hear the term dementia (and, of course, not everyone who has dementia will reach this point). Life may have to be adjusted in some ways, but it’s life. 

There’s been some movement toward teaching people to live and live well with dementia. It hasn’t come from the medical profession. In fact, it’s come from people living with dementia. They’ve realized that they had to search for resources after diagnosis, and they are helping others so they don’t have to search quite so diligently. One of the most amazing aspects of the dementia community is how people with dementia have connected–often online–to support each other.

They often vent about how we (as professionals and family members) just don’t get it. And you know what? They’re right. We don’t get it. I hope they realize that we are trying–or at least most of us are. We may say stupid stuff, but we are well-intentioned. I try hard, and yet I wish I had a dime for every regrettable thing I’ve said to someone with dementia.

We are putting more money into finding cures for most diseases that cause dementia than in the past. However, the support services and advice the medical community (with exception, of course) hands out at diagnosis is still pathetic. You leave the office knowing you have Alzheimer’s, or Frontotemporal Dementia, or Lewy-Body. But then what do you do? This isn’t some abstract, philosophical question. Literally, where do you go next?

Someone once mentioned to me that she was told by her family doctor that it was likely she had Alzheimer’s. She had planned to meet a friend for lunch after the appointment. She sat in her car–frozen–not knowing if she should go to Applebee’s with her friend or cancel her plans. She managed to text her friend a message that said something like, “Can’t do lunch. Might have Alzheimer’s.”

Then she went home and sat with her phone in her hand, wondering if it was appropriate to call her kids and tell them of her diagnosis, or if it was in bad taste to not tell them face-to-face. When she called her daughter, her daughter asked, “So is this better or worse than cancer?” They discussed this for several minutes and came to the conclusion that it depended on the type and stage of cancer.

She was working a part-time job and didn’t know if she should go to work the next day. Or maybe she should call in sick–because she had Alzheimer’s. Can someone with Alzheimer’s work? She had no idea. She actually called the doctor back to ask. He said it was fine to work…until it wasn’t fine anymore.

Most of the information available regarding Alzheimer’s and related dementias isn’t about life. And life, even life with dementia, is about more than preparing for death.

When I did a hospice training about ten years ago, I met a middle-aged guy with cancer. He had been in hospice for a few months. The volunteer coordinator had invited him to come talk to our group of volunteers. As his wife pushed his wheelchair into the conference room, I couldn’t help but think he looked pretty cheerful for a man with a few months to live. I don’t remember his face; I do remember that he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and had a pierced ear.

He talked to us for about an hour, but I only clearly remember one thing he said. He told us, “There’s something between diagnosis and death. It’s called life.”

And that’s especially true of a disease like Alzheimer’s…when that life can last a long time. And for some people, life after diagnosis can be a pretty good life.

The reality (as ugly as it is) is that some people with dementia will need adult diapers. There may be decisions to make about feeding tubes and other end-of-life issues. But…truth be told…there’s a chance that every single one of us has this in our future–whether we have dementia or not.

But in the meantime, there’s life.

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

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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.

Choices in Dementialand (aka Confessions of a Spoiled Dinner Brat)

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At any given time, there are several blog posts in my “drafts” that I haven’t published. Sometimes they aren’t published because I think they are poorly-written and need some polishing. Once in a while I hold something back because I haven’t quite found the right words to explain what I want to explain. And then there are a few that I haven’t published because they are somewhat rambling and pointless.

However, this one has been a “draft” for quite some time for a different reason. I have not published this post yet because it will make everyone think I’m a spoiled brat. In a way, maybe I am.

Let me start by saying that my husband is a really good cook. Not only is he a good cook, he enjoys cooking. On the contrary, I am definitely not known for my cooking. And I don’t enjoy cooking nearly as much as he does. However, I do enjoy eating.

In the middle of any given day, he is likely to ask me, “What do you want for dinner?” He’s not asking which frozen pizza he should throw in the oven or if he should pick something up at Panchero’s (although both of these options are completely acceptable in my book). He’s asking what he should stop at the grocery store to buy and go home to prepare. Whether I say pasta, tuna steak, or an egg sandwich, he’s on it. Pretty amazing, right?

Well, yeah…except I hate the question “What do you want for dinner?” The great thing is that he’d go get and make absolutely anything I name, but that is also the struggle. Even though I’m a vegetarian who generally avoids fried food and doesn’t do spicy, there are probably a million options. That’s precisely why it’s such a hard question to answer. When he asks me what I want for dinner (especially in the midst of a long day at work), I usually can’t come up with a single idea.

I don’t mean to complain. The guy is willing to go grocery shopping and prepare dinner. You’d think I’d have the mental energy to make a decision about what we should have, but sometimes it’s just too overwhelming. When you can choose anything, sometimes it’s hard to chose anything. So when he asks me what I want for dinner, I usually say I don’t know or that I don’t care.

Choice is great. Being able to make our own decisions is what empowers us and makes us the people we are. If you think about some of the punishments that we hand out to criminals, an important factor is that we take away choice. People in prison don’t get too much choice about what to eat or when to go outside. Others make those decisions for them. This is a big part of why people in prison feel dehumanized and stripped of their identity.

While we don’t like our choices made for us, making decisions for ourselves takes mental energy. The other night, we went out for froyo. We were at one of those places where you top your own frozen yogurt and they weigh it to figure your price. (Total tab for my husband and me: Almost $15.) It’s great to be able to have choices in yogurt and toppings, of course. And, yet, I’m not sure choosing from 27 flavors of yogurt really makes a person happier than choosing from six flavors. That’s before you even get to the toppings. (I should add that we now have four top-your-own froyo places in town, so this all happens after we decide which one to visit.)

Evaluating and making choices, whether these choices are big or small, taxes our brains. There are times when we have so many options that we shut down and can’t make a choice. The brain becomes flooded and it’s just easier to not make a decision. I once had an international student in my class from Africa. He told me that the first time he went to buy laundry detergent in the US he looked at all the options and, completely overwhelmed, left the store without buying any. I recently read an article that said that women who have a ridiculous amount of clothes often look in their closet and say they have nothing to wear because the amount of clothing is overwhelming. For that reason, fewer clothes in a well-organized closet may make getting dressed in the morning less stressful.

Choices take mental energy for all of us, and the dementia brain may have even more limited mental energy. Decisions that require evaluating many options can be really difficult, even they are decisions that most of us consider minor and pretty inconsequential. What do you want to do today? What do you want for lunch? Where do you want to go? What do you want to wear? 

Sometimes we can help people (and not just those with dementia) by giving options. As people have more limited mental energy, the number of options should decrease accordingly.

Would you rather go to the park, the coffee shop, or the art museum today?

Do you want to wear your blue shirt or your red shirt?

A family caregiver I once talked to told me that she was worried about her mom’s appetite. She would often ask her mom what she wanted to eat. Her mom would say that she wasn’t hungry. A simple change in how she asked the question made a huge difference. She starting asking questions in a different way. She made her questions multiple-choice and limited the options.

“Would you like a turkey sandwich or a salad?” she would ask. Her mom would respond with her preference. It wasn’t that her mom wasn’t hungry. It was that she was overwhelmed by the question.

Not surprisingly, processing options may take longer for people who have dementia. Often we have the tendency to jump in and make a decision when someone doesn’t respond immediately. Or we ask the question again–in a louder voice. (Why is it so common for us to think someone will be able to process our question more efficiently if we yell at them when the opposite is true?)

When I was in graduate school and first started teaching college classes, I was frustrated that my students were not participating in the discussion when I asked questions in class. My major professor, who had thirty years of teaching experience, observed my teaching and gave me some helpful feedback.

“Elaine, obviously no one is answering your questions in class,” he said in his heavy Dutch accent. “You ask a question and no one responds because you don’t give them a chance. They don’t have time to process the question before you jump in and answer it yourself.”

I taught myself to slowly count to ten in my head (and tolerate the silence) after I ask a question to a classroom of students. Fortunately, my students seem to think silence is awkward so they jump in at about seven to answer–even if they don’t want to.

I’ve started using this same strategy when I talk to someone with dementia. To tell you the truth, I probably should use it with everyone. Because we perceive silence as uncomfortable, we often don’t give people time to process questions they are asked.

So…a note to my husband. Please give me 3-4 dinner options and then plenty of time to process my choices. Maybe a printed menu with photos would be nice.

He packs my lunch for work, too. Yeah, maybe I am a tad spoiled.

The B Word in Dementialand

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Burden. It means hardship, mental weight, or strain.

It’s a word caregivers at dementia support groups dance around awkwardly.

Caregivers vent. They talk about their lack of privacy or their dearth of support. They discuss their frustrations and challenges. They say they have no time to care for their own health or spend with friends. Every once in while, someone cries.

But then it usually comes back to a statement that goes something like this: “But it’s not a burden. I love her and I’d have it no other way.” Then they all nod knowingly in a sterile way.

One day, a woman made what I thought may have been a total support group faux-pas. She said it was a burden.

Let me start by saying that she was in her late 30’s with a couple of kids and a full-time job. Her mom had younger-onset Alzheimer’s and had moved in. For a few months, her mom had been able to contribute around the house. She cooked and did dishes. She could watch the kids for short amounts of time. She kept the house clean and pulled weeds. But lately her mom needed so much support to provide help that it really wasn’t help at all.

“Caring for mom is becoming such a burden,” she confided to the group. Everyone cringed at the word burden. “This disease is such a burden on our whole family but most of all it’s a burden on Mom.”

Although some members of the group seemed uncomfortable with her using the word burden, there was something about what she said that made me think. The disease is a burden, she said. The person isn’t a burden. And the disease is a burden to the person who has it even more than the caregivers.

We often say that we don’t mind caring for those we love when they are ill, whether that be with Alzheimer’s, cancer, or another disease. We tell others that we do it out of love. We say we wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t doubt that this is the truth.

Yet, we wish that we didn’t have to do it at all. We don’t like it when our loved ones need care. We want to see people we care about doing the things that they enjoy. We hate seeing them in pain, whether it be physical or emotional. And that’s why we should hate Alzheimer’s…and cancer…and ALS…and cystic fibrosis.

What this woman acknowledged was not that her mother was a burden but that Alzheimer’s was a burden. And I agree. Alzheimer’s is a burden in a million different ways. Sometimes I feel like caregivers want to deny that the disease is a burden because if they use the b word it means that they don’t love the person who needs care.

You get to love the person but hate the disease. In fact, I encourage you to hate the disease and to tell everyone you know how much you hate it–because we’ve spent too long ignoring the challenges this disease presents to individuals, families, and society.

I talked to a family a few months ago who had lost their father to Alzheimer’s before his 60th birthday. They had been through a lot. He had been asked to leave (in their words, “kicked out”) of several assisted livings and memory care communities for aggressive and inappropriate behavior. They had gone through his savings and the savings of his children to try to secure him decent care. Although they weren’t entirely sure, his family thought he died because he had aspirated food into his lungs and developed pneumonia.

“Is all of this normal?” one of the daughters asked me. “I feel like our experience with Alzheimer’s has to be worse than the normal experience. If it’s like this for everyone, people would be fighting harder for a cure.”

I’m not sure there is a “normal” with Alzheimer’s, but I hear a lot of stories like this. The disease can be a real nightmare. They didn’t want to care for their father. They’d rather he didn’t need care in the first place. We care for people because we love them but it’s that love that makes caregiving so difficult. And it’s okay that sometimes we get angry and sad because we have to be caregivers, particularly when the person who needs care is young enough that they really shouldn’t need care (in a perfect and fair world, anyway). It doesn’t mean that our loved one is a burden. It means that caregiving is hard.

I’ve talked with many individuals who have an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Keep in mind that this is a life-limiting illness. Eventually Alzheimer’s progresses to the point where life is not sustainable. You will die from the disease or with the disease. I know I may sound harsh in pointing this out, but I still struggle to get individuals to understand it. Life doesn’t end at diagnosis (and I know many individuals living and living well with the disease), but Alzheimer’s is terminal.

However, I’ve never had someone after their diagnosis mention to me that their greatest fear is death. Never. When I talk to individuals who are newly-diagnosed, they almost always say that their fear is becoming a burden to their family. Their family usually jumps in and insists that they could never be a burden.

Sometimes it’s better to acknowledge that they will all be burdened by the disease itself. And they will all be burdened together because that’s the way love works. They didn’t ask for this disease and it’s not going anywhere.

At a memory care community recently, a woman with dementia walked up to me and said, “My brain has a clog and I’m carrying around a ball and chain.” I didn’t ask for further explanation, but I sent a text to myself immediately so I would remember her exact words. It struck me as a better description of dementia than anything I’d read in a textbook.

Her clog? Her ball and chain? Those are her burdens. People with dementia are not burdens. They are burdened.

Forgetting Your Manners (Among Other Things) in Dementialand

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Several years ago, I was sitting with a group of individuals who had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I don’t spend a lot of time with people in the early stages of the disease. Many of the people with Alzheimer’s that I talk to are past the point where they are able to tell me what it’s like to have Alzheimer’s. Although I had been to many caregiver support groups, this was the first time I had been at a support group for individuals who had been diagnosed.

The group was talking about fears. Although Alzheimer’s is a terminal disease, no one mentioned death or dying. No one talked about the anxiety and depression that often accompany Alzheimer’s. Surprisingly, several participants said that their biggest fears were actually related to having limited financial resources for care.

One man, who was still able to drive, was terrified of losing his driver’s license. If he lost his license, he’d have to depend on other people for transportation and he knew it would be difficult for him to ask for rides. A woman in her late 40’s was scared of how her children would negotiate the loss of their mother as the disease progressed. She worried they would feel burdened taking care of her when they should be establishing their careers and starting families.

Then there was a quiet woman, who had not yet spoken much, who told us about her biggest fear. Her biggest fear was forgetting her manners. She feared being in a nursing home and having someone care for her–but not being able to thank them for their help. She worried the basics of etiquette might escape her. Maybe she’d start interrupting people or chewing with her mouth open. If she needed help, she worried she’d ask for it in a rude or demanding way. She was frightened she’d be unable to be polite as the disease progressed.

Maybe this is an obvious point, but it hadn’t hit me until that day. And it goes beyond Alzheimer’s. What we fear losing the most is dependent on how we define ourselves.

The man who was afraid of losing his driver’s license? He had always defined himself as independent. He clung to that. The woman who worried about burdening her children? Being a mom was an important part of her identity. And a good mom launches her kids out in the world to develop successful careers and happy, healthy families. And the lady who worried about losing her manners? She had always aimed to be a poised, polite, kind, and gracious person. Since she was a child, people had complimented her on her manners. That was just who she was.

We all have traits and roles by which we define ourselves. Ask yourself “Who am I?” Then think about the possibility of losing the things that make you who you are. This is why retirement is a struggle for some individuals. Sometimes we lose a part of our identity that we’ve really valued. Who are we if we are not a plumber, a nurse, or a college professor? It may take a while to figure that out.

A few years ago, I had a knee injury. Obviously, the type of loss created by such an injury cannot be compared to dementia, but it did threaten a part of my identity. I am a dedicated and motivated (although not fast) distance runner. I have done two marathons and over 20 half-marathons.

It’s not about winning races. (To be honest, I have won a few 5ks in my age group, but that only happens when I am the only woman 30-39 who shows up without a jog stroller to push. This has actually been the case in a couple very small local races.) It’s about being a runner. Who am I? Among other things, I am a runner. I don’t need to post every run I do to Facebook. I realize that the world doesn’t care if I ran 5.63 or 5.69 miles today or if my pace was over or under a ten-minute mile. But I get out and get my run done. I didn’t realize this was such an integral part of my self-definition until I was faced with letting it go. Fortunately, I had surgery and am back out on the roads. (Sorry to all the female runners pushing jog strollers–I’m back!)

Who am I? In no particular order, I’m a wife, daughter, friend, college professor, Alzheimer’s awareness advocate, runner, public speaker, and fitness instructor. What if I were faced with losing these parts of my identity? What if I couldn’t do the things that I think make me…well…me? I’d like to think I could redefine myself, but it’s not that easy–especially when you’re not doing it by choice.

There are plenty of people who live well with dementia, particularly in the early stages. They may do many of the things that they used to do. They fulfill many of the roles they’ve always fulfilled. But what we miss from the outside is that they must let go of parts of themselves from the time they begin showing symptoms. A golfer can no longer golf. A cook can no longer cook. A writer can no longer write.

These may seem like small things in the big picture, but they are not. Golf, cooking, writing…these are things that make us who we are. If you’re a golfer who can no longer golf, people tell you to find a new hobby…a new way to spend your time. But you’re a golfer. And you get to grieve the loss of that part of your identity. And you get to tell people to be quiet when they keep telling you that you can find other hobbies and that not being able to golf is no big deal. It’s not just a hobby. It’s part of who you are.

The woman who was worried about forgetting her manners? The support group facilitator told her it was okay if she forgot her manners. He said that if she didn’t thank people who took care of her, it was understandable. He told her that it didn’t really matter if she interrupted people or if she chewed with her mouth full.

“It may be okay with other people if I lose my manners,” she responded. “But it is not okay with me.”

We don’t get to tell people with dementia that these potential losses don’t matter. They do matter.