Disease Cure Remedy: deeply forgetful

Friday, 6 April 2012

Conversations as a Means to Delay the Onset of Alzheimer's Disease

Everyone needs conversation and social engagement. This includes persons who are deeply forgetful.

By Bob DeMarco
Alzheimer's Reading Room

Conversations as a Means to Delay the Onset of Alzheimer's

Can conversation, social interaction, and using the brain slow the progression of Alzheimer's?

I believe it can and does.

Over the years, I have spent more and more time talking and interacting with Dotty.

For example, we start every day, right off the bat talking about the newspaper. Dotty reads me the day and date. Then I ask her what is interesting on the front page, and then get her to read some of it to me.

If that doesn't work we move to the food section and discuss the recipes. Most of the time the list of ingredients are quite long.

I still marvel at the fact that at the age of 95 years old Dotty can still read the newspaper without glasses. Believe it or not, she also watches television without eye glasses.

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Next we include Harvey in on the conversation. In case you are new, Harvey is a toy repeat parrot. I talk to Dotty, Harvey repeats what I say, and Dotty chimes in. I also sing to Harvey. Harvey repeats. Oddly, Dotty tell Harvey he has a good voice, she rarely tells me that I have a good voice.

I try to keep Dotty conversing or singing all day long. We use the Swing channel on television for music and it works like a charm.

I think most caregivers find it difficult to converse with a person who is deeply forgetful. If so, start singing and go from there.

My main point, you cannot let a person who is deeply forgetful sit around for long periods of time doing nothing. If you do I can already tell you what will likely happen. They will quickly become duller than a door know.

In addition, just about every caregiver on this website claims that memory day care programs work and bring clear cut benefits.

Believe or not, there is a clinical trial going on right now that is attempting to measure the effect of face-to-face communication on people without dementia. The purpose is to determine if conversation has a positive effect on cognitive function among the elderly. The best part is that the study will allow the patient to stay at home while communicating.

Here is the description.

Purpose

Past epidemiological studies have demonstrated that larger social networks, or more frequent social interactions, could have potential protective effects on the incidence of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). However, in those studies, indicators of social interactions were often broad, and included distinct elements that affected cognition and overall health. the investigators will examine whether conversation-based cognitive stimulations have positive effects on general, and domain-specific cognitive functions among the elderly. Face-to-face communication will be conducted through the use of personal computers, webcams, and user-friendly simple interactive Internet programs to allow participants to have social engagement while staying at their home and also for the cost effective execution of the study.

Unfortunately, this study is only being conducted in one location in Portland, Oregon. Conversations as a Means to Delay the Onset of Alzheimer's Disease (conversation).

Some people wonder why Dotty doesn't have that dull look on her face. Well she did for about 2 years. It happened in part because I allowed her to become and remain dull. This changed when I started paying more attention to her. I can say after more than 8 years I Dotty gets more conversation and interaction today than at any time in the future. Of course, Harvey is a big positive factor in this effort.

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Bob DeMarco is the Founder of the Alzheimer's Reading Room and an Alzheimer's caregiver. The ARR knowledge base contains more than 3,811 articles with more than 306,100 links on the Internet. Bob lives in Delray Beach, FL.

Original content Bob DeMarco, the Alzheimer's Reading Room

Thursday, 5 April 2012

Just Let the Deeply Forgetful Do It

Almost every day I am reminded of one of the most important things I learned about Alzheimer's caregiving -- Just let Dotty do it.

By Bob DeMarco
+Alzheimer's Reading Room

I believe this is important.

Just let them do it. I am referring here to a person who is deeply forgetful.

Lets reverse this -- Don't do everything for them. You might ask why?

First, don't do everything for them. If you do everything for a person who is deeply forgetful they will forget how to do it. Once they forget it is unlikely that they will be able to relearn how to do it.

Second, just let them do it. I learned first hand that a person who is deeply forgetful is capable of more, much more, than you might be imaging. There is more there than you can imagine. I relearn this constantly, and I have been at it for more than 8 years with Dotty.

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You have to trust yourself, and trust the person who is deeply forgetful.

Let's face it, your brain is going to try and trick you every time. Your brain will tell you, they can't do it. Anyone on this blog ever commented, "this won't work for me". And then commented later on, "it works".

How about Harvey the parrot?

Of course it is easy to trick yourself. They have a saying that goes around in the Alzheimer's community, it goes something like this.

If you have met one Alzheimer's patient, you have met one Alzheimer's patient.

This is supposed to mean -- every Alzheimer's patient is different. It also is used as a subliminal message to make it easy for you to "think and believe" just because something works for someone else, it won't work for you.

What the message really implies is, don't even bother trying, they can't do it.

Did you ever read something on this website and think that won't work for me? Well, if you didn't try it, I betcha a thousand dollars it didn't work.

Did you ever think, this won't work for us, but you decided to give it a try and it did work? Don't be shy.
One of the things you have to learn to become an effective caregiver is that there is More There.

This so called more there is elusive because from the time a person is diagnosed as being "deeply forgetful", your brain starts tricking you into thinking pretty soon "they" won't be able to anything.

See, it is your brain tricking you. Your brain.

Don't take the above too personal. I let my brain trick me for a while, just like most of us do.

In our case, Dotty girl started doing this and doing that and pretty soon I started to get the hang of it.

Here is one thing I learned. Dotty will constantly do something that I could never have imagined. Every time she does it I am surprised. Fortunately, these little surprises remind me over and over --there is more there.

Learning that there is more there is hard to do. I guess this explains why I have to relearn this over and over.

Hey, none of this is perfect. Sometimes you try something and it doesn't work. Then you think about it for a while. Pretty soon you get a new and better idea. Finally, something does work. Feels good doesn't it?

By the way, nobody bats a 1,000. Not even me, ;>)

Trust me, your brain is going to try and defeat you. Don't let it.

Just let them do it.

Okay, I gotta go, I have to go meet a brand new orange. It is really fascinating to me how every orange is different from every other orange.

Positive thinking.

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Bob DeMarco is the Founder of the Alzheimer's Reading Room (ARR). Bob is a recognized Influencer, speaker, and expert in the Alzheimer's and Dementia Community Worldwide. The Alzheimer's Reading Knowledge Base contains more than 4,000 articles, and the ARR has more than 343,000 links on the Internet. Bob lives in Delray Beach, FL.

Learn more about Alzheimer's and Dementia in the Alzheimer's Reading Room.