Harvey Reincarnated, He's Back

I guess you could say, where there's a will there's a way.

By Bob DeMarco
Alzheimer's Reading Room

Harvey Reincarnated

For those of you that are new, Harvey is a repeat parrot. I consider Harvey to be a key tool, and an important tool, in my efforts as an Alzheimer's caregiver.

Go ahead and laugh. Most people do.

Meanwhile, Harvey often entertains Dotty and keeps her occupied. Importantly, Dotty talks to Harvey and often tells him things she doesn't tell me. For example, Dotty might say "Harvey, I have a headache".

Listening to Dotty talk to Harvey is really uplifting. It makes Dotty happy and this makes me happy. Happy caregiver.

Harvey helps keep Dotty socialized. Importantly, when Dotty is engaged with Harvey, I can do something I want to do.


How did I resurrect Harvey from the dead. Well thanks to one of our readers, I finally obtained a repeat parrot that takes a nine volt battery from Carol's gifts.

However, this new parrot doesn't take two AA batteries. So his mouth doesn't move, and his wings don't flap. What he does do is pick up sound from a distance and he works a bit better than Petey (known here as new Harvey).

Chintzy, Harvey, Petey

This new parrot is kinda chintzy and I knew it as soon as the box came. It was not big or heavy enough. Chintzy aside, he does have a good sound system. Not as strong a voice as Harvey, but a good voice. And, he actually has a slightly longer delay before he repeats. This is taking some getting use too. He also seems to do a good job on longer strings of words. We shall see. We just got him an hour ago.

It was immediately clear that this new parrot would be unable to step into the vacuum left by Harvey. Too small for one thing. Plus, the colors are not so great. Dotty actually recoiled and got scared when I took him out of the box.

So, I decided to give Harvey a major operation. I took him apart, cut all the wires and finally ripped him off his perch. Next, I had to take the base of the new parrot and cut it until I finally reached the point where I could attach Harvey to the new base, the one with the new sound system.

So now Harvey is back. I wouldn't say new and improved, but more than good enough and still better than Petey.

Don't worry all you Petey owners, I have also improved Petey and I will make a video about that soon. Also, a new Dotty - Harvey video.

What a day.

Here is Dotty and Harvey for those of you that are new, or never tire of hearing from Dotty.





Read More on the Alzheimer's Reading Room

• How Alzheimer's Spreads Throughout the Brain
• Test Your Memory for Alzheimer's (5 Best Self Assessment Tests)
• What is Alzheimer's Disease?
• What is Dementia?
• What’s the Difference Between Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia
• Communicating in Alzheimers World
• How the Loss of Memory Works in Alzheimer’s Disease, and How Understanding This Could Help You
• Learning How to Communicate with Someone Suffering From Alzheimer's Disease
• Alzheimer's World -- Trying to Reconnect with Someone Suffering from Alzheimer's Disease
• About the Alzheimer's Reading Room

Bob DeMarco is the Founder of the Alzheimer's Reading Room and an Alzheimer's caregiver. The blog contains more than 3,361 articles with more than 397,100 links on the Internet. Bob lives in Delray Beach, FL.

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