Delve Into Their Reality

[Subdeacon Joe]

A different perspective on Alzheimer's

 

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

So THAT's what they're doing with me!!

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

Most dementia ain't quite like that. Often dad is nowhere, much less 1959.

[watab kid]

in the early/middle stages my mom started thinking i was my father and talking of "our-their" childhood as if it was a few years back , i learned some things of their young lives i had never known 

[Ozark Huckleberry]

Flowing, not 'fixing'.

[Pat Riot]

I have only been around a few people with the early stages of this terrible disease so I really can’t say what is better in regards to what Joe posted. I did have a neighbor in the early ‘80’s who was a fighter pilot in WW2 that was diagnosed with Alzheimers. He would wander off searching for “something” and I helped find him a few times. 
I do recall that once he thought I was one of his shipmates and he got very agitated when I kept denying I was who he thought I was. He kept saying “John, quit messing with me. What’s wrong with you? Why are you going this?”

I finally gave in and played along just to get him into my truck to get him home from one of his excursions. 
 

A few years back I thought I might have early onset Alzheimers. I was tested and it was determined that I was “fine just forgetful”. I didn’t believe my doctors at first and was afraid. Over time I realized that I have always been a bit absent minded it was just that some events at work made me consider that I might have a problem. Turns out I have the same problem that I always have it was just in this instance I had a boss gaslighting me making me think I had a problem. 
My point is that I was terrified that I might be losing my mind. I cannot imagine what Alzheimer’s would be like and I pray I never find out. More than that I hope and pray my family doesn’t have to find out. 
 

When I quit smoking I was using nicotine lozenges to help with the process. When my doctor asked me how many nicotine lozenges I was using I told her I was down to 5 - 2mg lozenges a day, which is 10mg of nicotine daily. She said 10mg was good and nothing really to be concerned about and that one Marlboro Light cigarette contained around 18mg of nicotine. Then she told me something that surprised me. She said “Studies are showing that minimal doses of nicotine may be beneficial in regards to fending off Alzheimer’s and nicotine has been shown to help people with Alzheimer’s.”

She told me not to worry about 10mg of nicotine daily, so I don’t. I still use the lozenges and am still at 10 or 12 mg a day. 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

The same holds true for stroke patients.

The brain is such an unbelievably complex organ that a stroke -- whether ischemic or vascular -- almost invariably results in a personality change, but can also generate false memories.

A young man of my acquaintance had four embolic CVAs after surgery, a lung collapsed and air bubbles were pumped to his brain.

He said he could look in the fish eye mirror at the doorway of his ICU room and see a uniformed US Marshal standing at correct parade rest, waiting for him to so much as throw one leg over the siderail of his hospital bed so the lawman could turn and drive two .357s through his wish bone.

No one could understand why this young man was despondent and given to fits of crying.

We finally discovered he had the trauma-induced, false memory of having screwed his duty pistol into his police partner's ear, pulled the trigger, and smiled.
In his mind he was what he hated most -- a cop killer -- until his discharge, until he spoke with his partner on the phone, until he laid a hand on the man's shoulder and said through bloodless lips, "You're not a ghost," -- not until that moment did his damaged mind begin to heal.
He had a full recovery, but nurses are taught, "Reorient to Reality," and every time they drawled out "You're in the hoss-pittle," as if to a slow child, he burst into tears.

His partner's name was Jim Haas, and "piddle" was a colloquilal term he'd known as a child -- "you're in a piddle now, boy," meaning he was in more trouble than he could weasel out of -- "You're in the hoss-piddle" translated in his bruised brain as "You cop killing monster, you're gonna fry!"

I presented this example in my nursing class as an example of why we should NOT reorient to reality, as a blanket policy.

[bgavin]

My first rodeo was Mom descending into dementia hell.
The trip consisted of delusional paranoia, corrupt care givers, cops and incompetent doctors that prevented me from paying her bills.
 

[Eyesa Horg]

When my FIL, God rest his soul, had Alzheimer's; we learned joining his world was easier. For some reason, he always knew who I was, maybe because he always called me the "Pollock"! Just simple things like when he was sitting in his favorite chair in the kitchen; he would suddenly want to go home. The family would try to convince him that he was home and an argument would usually occur. Ellie or I would just put his coat on him, take out the front door, walk around back and in the rear door that he usually used. Take his coat off and sit him back in the same warm chair. He always said thanks for believing him. I sure do miss him. What an awful decease. 

[Calamity Kris]

We went through that with my father as well.  A brilliant man, PhD in Mathematics and Physics, whom eventually couldn't tell the time on his digital watch.  I pray no one has to go through that .  If I become that way, take me out back, shoot me and feed me to the gators.  

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

2 hours ago, Calamity Kris said:

If I become that way, take me out back, shoot me and feed me to the gators.  

 

Well, you should still get the decent burial!

[Subdeacon Joe]

Obviously, given the nature of this curse, there is no "one size fits all" approach.  But in cases where the person is lucid within their reality, and are not a danger to themselves or others, it seems a gentle way of making them comfortable and at ease.

[bgavin]

My maw-in-law's man was a great gent who developed Picks Disease dementia.
This kills societal inhibitions in the areas of the brain it infects.
His big thing in the memory home was going around buck nekkid and loping his considerable Johnson for any who would watch.

Sad.  So incredibly sad to go from the man I knew, to the man I saw.

[Tom Bullweed]

I have been close to too many with this awful disease.  I am in my mid-50s and know that this number increase as I get older.

 

A local gunsmith told me that a common request is for family members to say "Dad, let's get your guns cleaned."  The gunsmith then removes firing pins or transfer bars.

[Dantankerous]

 My grandpa and my aunt both suffered and died from Parkinson's disease. Not exactly a distant cousin from Alzheimer's. Horrible damn illness.  I have also seen 2 friends suffer and die from Huntington's. And if at all possible that's a worse disease than Parkinson's. And lastly I lost a good college mate from ALS. Absolutely the worst damn thing you can imagine besides burning to death.