7 Steps to celebrating the 4th of July with the Alzheimer’s Patient
1. Try to maintain routine as much as you can. Don’t allow the days preparations to become disruptive or confusing. If the Alzheimer’s patient normally naps after lunch, allow time in the schedule for that important activity.
2. Include the person with Alzheimer’s in the activity to the extent she is able to participate. Simple activities such as folding the napkins, peeling the potatoes or setting the table will help the person feel that she is participating.
3. Because reminiscing can often be therapeutic for the person with Alzheimer’s, invite family and friends to tell stories of family events or times they have shared on previous 4th’s! Include children in the telling of family stories.
4. Don’t ask “Do you remember?” Testing the memory of a person with Alzheimer’s disease can be demoralizing to that person. Instead, introduce people by name and repeat the name frequently. Say something like “Your granddaughter Karen wants to tell you about the time you took her to the movies for the first time.”
5. The sights, sounds, and tastes of the day may stimulate your loved one’s senses. The loud noise from fireworks and vibrant colorful lights may frighten the patient or increase agitation. Have a plan in place if you plan to view the festivities away from home.
6. Try not to have too much going on at any one time, as it may confuse the person with Alzheimer’s. If the number of people or the noise level causes distress, redirect the Alzheimer’s patient by sitting quietly with him or taking him for a walk.
7. Consider the time of day. Some Alzheimer’s patients experience “sun downing” or evening confusion and may derive more pleasure from a lunchtime celebration.
What causes Sundowner’s and triggers the behaviors and mood changes?
There seem to be as many theories of the causes of Sundowner’s Syndrome as there are symptoms. Experts agree on a few, and other experts have formed different ideas. Medical research continues, and it’s important to stay up-to-date as more possible causes emerge.
Some medical professionals believe that the syndrome is an accumulation of all of the sensory stimulation from the day that starts to overwhelm and cause stress. Others speculate that it is caused by hormonal imbalances that occur at night. Another theory follows that the onset of symptoms at night is simply due to fatigue; while some believe it has to do with the anxiety caused by the inability to see as well in the dark.
To read more of this article by Aprill Jones, click here
ElderCare Matters Radio Chats With Elayne Forgie About How to Cope With Alzheimer’s Disease
Elayne Forgie, CMC
ElderCare at Home
ElderCare Resource Center
Member of the national ElderCare Matters® Alliance, Florida ElderCare Chapter
Massage and Alzheimer’s Disease
Before you consider massaging peopl
e with Alzheimer’s disease, you first have to learn enough about the disease to develop an understanding of the emotional problems you will face.
The best source of information is the relatively recent second edition of the Merck Manual of Geriatrics. It is written for physicians, mostly likely internists and general practitioners, some from foreign countries, in an effort to help those colleagues to somehow alleviate the tremendous nationwide dearth of geriatricians by presenting them with this fabulous textbook. I believe this is what makes the book so thorough, so lucid and so understandable, even for us lay-people.
This manual is a godsend for those of us fascinated by the tremendous variances you find among age cohorts, because it is true that there are typical 20-year-olds, but no typical 75-year-olds. Members of the latter group go all the way from mountaineer and long distance runner, to writer and piano virtuoso, to the helpless wheelchair occupant stuck in the hall of a nursing home. To read more, click here!
I attended the first day of our local Alzheimer’s conference today and our keynote speaker, a highly respected neurologist, discussed various things that we can do to perhaps extend the time before we get the disease. The assumption being that if we live to 85+ years, all of us are going to actually have Alzheimer’s disease… We will either have been diagnosed with it or they will discover that we had it all along, upon our death and autopsy.
Apparently 50% of all people aged 85 or older have Alzheimer’s disease. And get this - 100% of the people whose brain tissue is tested after their death, have the pathology that were they still alive, would lead their doctor to tell them they too have Alzheimer’s disease.
So, what can we do to starve off this dreaded disease? How can we live a life that causes us to not show symptoms until as we are as old as possible, if ever?
Well, he talked about a lot of things I do know - like exercising the brain, reducing stress etc. But he mentioned something I didn’t know, which is diet.
Yeah I know not to eat too much red meat etc. but I didn’t know that there is actually a diet that neurologists and researchers are recommending, and there is! It is the Mediterranean Diet, for those of you, like me, that didn’t know.
Here is a link to a Mayo Clinic article I found while surfing around today and another blurb from Dr. Andrew Weil. You can also go to Amazon.com and ediets.com for books, diet information etc. I know that I am definitely going to check it out! Hope you find it useful!
