caring for an alzheimer’s patient

Students of SVT College of Home Science displayed interesting posters explaining how Alzheimer’s happens and what to do about it.

by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Students of SVT College of Home Science, SNDT University put up an array of informative posters about the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, how it affects the sufferer and how to deal with it at an event on Saturday. The event, a sensitisation seminar, was titled ‘Understanding and respective individuals with Alzheimer’s’ and was held in association with Lions Club of JB Nagar, Andheri, our campaign partners Silver Innings Foundation and ARDSI Greater Mumbai Chapter. It was held yesterday at SNDT University, Juhu campus.

A total of 150 people participated. These included students, senior citizens and family caregivers. Hearteningly, 90 per cent were youth. As part of the event, five skits were performed and there was a poster exhibition, which explained the various stages of Alzheimer’s and dementia, and the Dos and don’ts to be followed by caregivers as part of their daily interactions with those afflicted. See a few of the posters below:

What causes Alzheimers’:

Age (those at risk are people over 65 years old. More than 50 per cent of those afflicted are over 85 years old), family history, vascular diseases (high BP, high cholesterol), stroke, faulty lifestyle, obesity, habits like smoking, drinking alcohol, chewing tobacco, drinking excess coffee, those suffering a head injury, toxins such as aluminium, infections and viruses, deficiency of Vitamin A, C, E, B6, B12, carotenoids, zinc, selenium and being socially inactive.

Symptoms:

Repeating statements over and over again; misplacing items; having trouble recalling familiar names or familiar objects; getting lost on familiar routes; personality changes; losing interest in things previously enjoyed; difficulty performing tasks that take some thought but which used to come easily (like balancing a checkbook, playing complex games such as bridge and learning new information or routines).

Understanding Alzheimer’s:

– Alzheimer’s can cause a person to show behaviour that they normally wouldn’t. This means that you, as a caregiver, will be faced with many challenges as you try to give your the best care that you can.

– Some of the challenges that you may face include physical aggression, verbal aggression, mood swings, wandering, repetition of words, and combativeness.

– All of these changes in behaviour can lead to a great deal of tension and frustrations for both you and your patient. The most important thing that you need to remember is that your Alzheimer’s parent isn’t behaving this way on purpose. Their behaviour is simply the result of their disease so you need to avoid analysing the situation and looking for solutions when there are none.

What you can do:

– Make them as independent as possible.

– Give them medicines on time.

– Develop proper timetable for daily chores.

– Keep the house clean and maintain hygiene.

– Educate your neighbours and relatives.

– Don’t be rigid, be flexible with rules and behavioural changes.

– Share responsibility of care taking or appoint a professional caretaker.

– See that the professional caretakers are not given other household work.

– Avoid sharp edges in the house.

– Install a good security system for the house.

– Give the sufferer an ID card or a monitoring device.

– Don’t change their living environment

– Respect them.

(Pictures courtesy Sailesh Mishra, Silver Innings)

When I lost my father to Alzheimer’s

The disorder can wreak havoc with a person’s life, and he or she can wither away before your eyes.

by Humra Quraishi

Those affected by the Alzheimer’s disorder change drastically, beyond recognition. Their memory becomes ‘polka dotted’, with only little islands of memory remaining. With pathological changes in the brain beginning to take place, the affected person’s lifestyle and personality, and everything else connected with them undergo a sharp transformation. The affected person may get into a shell or turn aggressive, or could sit looking lost and forlorn. And as the memory cells deteriorate and decline, the affected person finds it difficult to recognise his or her children.

My family didn’t have the slightest clue about the Alzheimer’s Disorder (AD) until it struck home. My father, Iqtidar Ali Khan, started displaying symptoms soon after his retirement. He began forgetting mundane things and started slipping into depression. At times, he would sit all by himself, looking lost and forlorn, or else sit sobbing. When we would sit beside him and hold his hand, or hug him, he would feel reassured. We didn’t realise that there was something more to the apparent bouts of depression and forgetfulness.

Then, one day, my father got lost in the park. More such incidents followed. Though he had been driving for decades, he suddenly couldn’t drive with the same confidence. Then he lost the sense of roads and familiar settings.

Within weeks, my handsome and well-dressed father had changed. Earlier, he had been very particular about going to the club for tennis or going on long drives, but within a short period of time, all that changed. He seemed lost, shutting himself into a shell…his memory shrank with each passing day. In effect, this is what Alzheimer’s roughly all about: shrinkage of the memory cells and the consequent degeneration.

My father passed away in 1996, but a couple of years before that, he couldn’t recognise us. He just stopped recognising us. His eyes conveyed restlessness, as though he wanted to say much or as if he was trying his utmost to connect with us and reach out. Sometimes he would murmur sentences and recall some incident, long gone by; something from his childhood or young life, maybe. Occasionally he would burst into tears, sob like a baby, and even go looking for his dead mother or his siblings.

One incident, in particular, shattered us. We saw him looking for something he seemed to have lost. He moved about restlessly, peering under beds, behind sofas and doors. When we asked him what the matter was, he spoke with restless impatience, “Where are my children? I’m looking for them. They’re lost! Find my children…are they lost or what!”

We were standing right there, staring at him in utter disbelief, but he couldn’t recognise us. He had been a doting father, helping us not just with our homework but even during the emotional turmoils of our lives. Always a family man, he would wait at the dining table and not eat before all of us had assembled for dinner or any meal. An engineer by profession, he would take us on his tours when he would supervise the construction of the various dams around Jhansi town.

I cannot describe how difficult and traumatic it is to see these painful changes. It is important to mention here that the role of the immediate family is crucial. The only time my father would look a bit peaceful was when we sat close by, holding his hand, clasping him as if to reassure him. Human bonding takes care of much of the pain that an AD-affected goes through.

(Pictures courtesy thinkprogress.org, www.cnn.com. Images are used for representational purpose only)