Have you ever known an Alzheimer's patient?!
Question: Hi. I'm a writer, and I'm doing a little research for a story I'm writing.
Have you ever known an Alzheimer's patient? Could you tell me what it's like to interact with someone during the late stages of Alzheimer's Disease? How do they behave? How do you think they feel? How did you feel while talking to them?
Any help would be very much appreciated. Thank you!
Answers: Hi. I'm a writer, and I'm doing a little research for a story I'm writing.
Have you ever known an Alzheimer's patient? Could you tell me what it's like to interact with someone during the late stages of Alzheimer's Disease? How do they behave? How do you think they feel? How did you feel while talking to them?
Any help would be very much appreciated. Thank you!
Yep I have. I used to working in Long Term Care and so I worked wih many who had Alzhiemers.
Gee to sum it all up in just this answer would be hard though, as they are so different.
Some were very paranoid and thought you were stealing their stuff. (They would misplace it and think it was stolen.)
Many reverted to the past and would think they were in thier childhood and speak as if they were in that time frame.
As far as me well I just went with it. I found it very unproductive to try and argue with someone as to person, place and time. Unless arguing would some how change the fact they had a degenerative brain disorder it did no good.
I had many that would revert to their native language, which is frustrating. One day you would go see them and they spoke English, the next day German.
Overall I found the experience very humbling as in many cases they may not remember who I was I could tell they associated me with a good feeling.
I work as an OT and without getting too much on a soap box I will just tell you I was often chewed out by supervisors for have a low productivity rate (the amount of time I could actually bill for OT services) Mine was low because I spent so much extra time getting to know these people and listening to them and well ethically I didn't feeel I should bill for that.
Anyway getting to know these people was an awesome expereince and as I said I know at times I made thier day. Some things never change such as a smile or a hug or someone saying to you "I really love you" even if they couldn't remember your name.
I guess the most memorable one was a lady who was in late stages and I went in to sit with her during breakfast.
She wouldn't eat and I tried to coax her a bit. She simply looked at me and said "Well you know I am going to die today, so I don't need breakfast"
Oddly enough we had a very in depth discussion about her disease and she was very oriented and spoke in detail about her pains of having it.
Lastly she told me that I (yeah little ol me) made her final days a little more tolerable.
Her last words to me were "I have no clue what your name is, but I remember your face. I don't remember all the things we talked about but I remember you listened and you hugged me when I cried"
I walked out of her room in tears. Part sadness because I would miss this woman and partly warm because I was glad to have impacted her life, even if in a small way.
They rushed her to the ER 2 hours later, where she died.
Ohh I have stories but I would take up your whole space.
Bottom line in these people are people. People that had rich lives and that deserve respect.
I had, but it was not during the last stages of the disease.
I do have an idea...I suffer from panic attacks...people consider this so common and so little attention is given, when it could impare completely your potential as a productive person. It never goes away, unless you try to resolve the root of the problem.
I believe you would have much more success writing about panic attacks. Just my humble opinion.
Cheers
i cleaned a house that she had it and once she wouldnt let me out of the bathroom demanding i was her granddaughter and must take 10,000 dollars but i ended up calling her daughter to get me out
I was caretaker for my grandmother before she died. She had an aneurysm that they decided not to operate on due to the Alzheimer's, so she didn't make it into the "end stage" of the disease; but it was still hard on all of us.
Here are a couple things I'll share with you, for what they're worth.
First, she would tend to wander off. Once, she went over a mile down the road (we lived in the country) and somehow the people figured out her last name and found us to return her. After that, I didn't want to argue with her about wandering off, so I decided the best thing to do was simply to hide all of her shoes. She got kind of frustrated looking for them; but it kept her safe and at home; and lessened the confrontations that we had to have. ; )
Also, about her death...she had the disease for a long time before we knew about it, and lived with us only the last 6 months or so. As she forgot who we were and lost the ability to do things on her own, she became less and less of the person she used to be. When she did die, it was like reaching the final page of a long, sad story and finally reading "The End." It was sad, but it was final, and closure in a way. It's very painful to say goodbye slowly over a period of years, watching the person fade away like that.
yes my grandad may he RIP, he died like 4 weeks ago, compleatly lost his memory, he was in hospital most the time so i never really interacted with him, he forgot who i was thou still
I was a caregiver for a woman who had dementia, she hit us, spit on us, swung at us, and went to the bathroom on us...she certainly wasn't the nurse she used to be...i don't think they even realize how they feel...it's much like a small child throwing a tantrum, and not using much sense.
I knew someone, and in the very late stages, its like the person is gone and all that is left is the body. the body is really worn out too. they don't remember you or who you are or where they are ever. I think it may be the worst way to die
When I was 8 my grandma had it and passed away. At that age I really didnt understand what was going on with her so I used to think what she was doing was just to make us laugh. She was a smoker and she remembered she smoked but didnt really know what cigarettes were so she used to get out her lipstick and try and light it up. My grandpa just took the lipstick off her one day and she never asked for her smokes again. I eventually became a nurse and looked after alot of people with alzheimers. Ill never forget one lady who had fractured her hip was waiting for her op. She was so clear and appreciative to me the night she came. In the morning she woke up, grabbed me and started crying and screaming that I had broken her leg and she wanted to go home. I felt so bad for her, she was so scared and confused. It must have been so horrible for her that she actually thought I had hurt her and in her mind, nobody was coming to save her. There was nothing I or anyone else could do or say to help her feel better. I cried all the way home.
my grandmother had alzheimer's and everytime I went to the nursing home to see her it broke my heart. She never remembered who I was and I always had to tell her. Then she always asked if she could go home. Over and over she would ask to go home. And I would always have to tell her she couldn't. Once we got past that part she would tell me the same story about my dad when he was little, or how the cows got loose one day.
Once we got past the part about who I was and her not going home, it was hard talking to her, but it was great. I knew, she barely remembered me. But she knew who my dad was and she had all these wonderful stories to tell me about my dad. Of course they were all stories from his childhood! They were stories I had never heard before, and she often repeated them over and over, but I wouldn't trade those memories for anything.
I hope this helps.
I have with my dear aunt. It was very frustrating trying to interact with her, no matter what you said or did she would answer inappropriately or not at all. Near the end she barely talked at all except to occasionally ask the same question over and over. She was sad, afraid , confused and pan icy. It was as if she had been removed from her life and plopped down in stranger home for mp apparent reason (it was her daughter's home but she didn't recognize her most of the time.She would wander off whenever she could and search for her home (she no longer lived there) and dead husband and other family who had passed on. Before she became so bad if she was told so and so was dead it affected her exactly as it would when it really happened and each time she asked it was the same thing. The saddest thing of all was the look of complete bewilderment, panic and sadness in her eyes.
ps to the one who cam pared Alzeimers to panic attacks is so very far off base, THey are not similar in any way. I too have panic attacks but I've never forgotten who my family was and all the other debilating problems. I'm sure the onr who made that statement was only tring to help but it brings up my. feeling that AskYahoo is a disservice to lots of people people asking are given so much information that wrong. THey also get correct information but how do they determine which is true.
Mick, I nursed my Grandmother during the last years of her life. She was never officially diagnosed with Alzheimer's. If she did not have it, she certainly had memory issues.
In the beginning, she would become frustrated Because she knew she was "slipping". At first it was small things. This was painful to witness.
In her last few years. (she lived to me almost 100) She could no longer recall my name. She spent her days traveling down memory lane. She would hold conversations with loved ones long gone. I felt she was re-living both the most wonderful and saddest memories of her life.
Mick, hope this helps.