by Maria on August 11, 2010
It was a Monday and Joan was rattled.
She’d called me early in the morning and left a message that described so fully and completely what often happens in the day-to-day of caring for someone with dementia.
“Maria, it’s Joan…” she said.
“An equipment delivery for Joe arrived yesterday morning for something that no one told me had been ordered. Then a nurse came to take his blood. It sure would have been nice if I’d know she was coming - I would have at least brushed my teeth!
I had just finished the breakfast dishes and was starting to fix Joe a sandwich when the pharmacy called to say that they were sending over a worker to pick up some medication that they gave me by accident yesterday.
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by Maria on August 4, 2010
The New York Times published an article recently that discussed a range of monitoring equipment that can be installed in your parent’s home. These products promise family caregivers of older adults peace of mind through e-mail, text message, or voice mail notifications each day that detail the data collected.
- 6:00 a.m. – your mother’s feet hit the bedroom floor
- 6:02 a.m. – she enters the bathroom
- 6:15 a.m. – she opens the refrigerator door
- 6:16 a.m. – she keep the cabinet door open for a minute before heading to the living room and sitting in her favorite chair.
- 6:45 a.m. – she retrieves her morning medications
…or doesn’t.
Supporters argue that monitoring equipment enables you to prevent mishaps such as your parent missing a dose of medication or worse, lying on the bathroom floor for hours after a fall, unable to call for help.
And there’s definitely something to that argument.
Frailty can increase the risk of falls and mild cognitive impairment or the early stages of dementia can make it hard to remember things. In these instances monitoring may make sense.
But, I would argue, only in these instances.
In other words, I think there’s a sweet spot here – a middle ground – where the monitoring equipment can be valuable. I’d define that spot as just after a marked decline in physical and/or mental functioning has begun and before hands-on assistance is absolutely required.
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by Maria on July 28, 2010
In big ways and small, Joan had learned that the only person she could ever truly rely on was herself.
It was a lesson first taught to her by her mother as a young girl and it was deeply rooted in distrust – not only in people but also in life and what it brings.
At the age of 12, Joan’s father left her and her mother and never returned; they were each devastated and very much on their own.
The pattern would repeat itself 14 years later when Joan was 26. Her husband at the time, a man she’d known and loved since childhood left her too. Only he didn’t walk out. Shortly after kissing Joan and their son goodbye on his way to work one morning, he suffered a brain hemorrhage and died shortly thereafter.
“My husband dying like that marked the second great loss of my life,” Joan shared with me one afternoon over glasses of her signature lemonade.
“Losing my father was the first and now I’m in the midst of the third.”
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by Maria on July 14, 2010
In the summer of 2006, Joan’s husband Joe was arrested. Not by the police, and certainly not as the result of anything he’d done wrong.
No, Joe was arrested for a far more insidious reason – he was arrested by dementia.
All indications were that Alzheimer’s disease was the cause.
A strong, able-bodied man who’d held the same job for 20 years, who’d relished trips to Atlantic City and spending time with his extended family on weekends, was irrevocably changing.
In order to care for him his wife would have to change too; she’d have to transition.
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