Thursday, April 16, 2015

Accepting Alzheimers, Coping in Alzheimers World | Alzheimer's Reading Room

Accepting Alzheimers, Coping in Alzheimers World | Alzheimer's Reading Room: Accepting Alzheimers, Coping in Alzheimers World



Did you ever wonder why most Alzheimer's patients stick like glue to their caregiver? Call out their name when they can't see them? Want to know where you are when they can't see you?



By Bob DeMarco

Alzheimer's Reading Room



Accepting Alzheimer's Coping

When a person has Alzheimer's disease or another type of dementia they are often difficult to understand. The behaviors they express are often difficult to accept.



It be be very hard to deal with a person suffering from Alzheimer's disease.



It is hard to understand that a person can't remember. Harder to accept that when they can't remember, they will do things that are completely foreign to your frame of reference.



Each of us has emotions and feelings. Alzheimer's has a way of bringing out the worst of these feelings and emotions.



The challenge -- learning to deal with a person living with Alzheimer's on their own terms. Learning to deal with Alzheimer's disease.



 http://tinyurl.com/buqqwxz 



Many caregivers come to the conclusion that the person living with Alzheimer's is not the person they knew. Knew most or all of their life.



Is it possible to deal with a stranger? Is this supposed stranger likable?



Can you like someone that continually makes you angry, frustrated and sad?



See what is happening? You make the situation about you. This is not the person I knew. I knew.



But Alzheimer's caregiving is not only about you. It is also about the person living with the disease.



The "live -R" cannot help or change the way they are acting. But, you can change the way you are acting or feeling.



Sooner or later you have to start by reminding yourself this is my Mom, this is my Dad, this is my Husband, this is my Wife.



Here is something I learned on the Alzheimer's Reading Room. Alzheimer's caregivers want, try hard, to give the person living with AD the highest quality of life possible.



Striving for this goal is difficult. Near the beginning, it seems impossible for most of us.