Monday, May 14, 2007

Dementia and Caregivers

It is so easy to be confused about the abilities of someone we love when they have Alzheimers Disease. Often, it is difficult to see the decline that others can see. This happens partially because we have seen someone frequently, and partially because a loved one can maintain good social skills and familiar habits and ways of relating, even when their cognitive ability has declined. Sometimes it happens because we don't want to see the changes, or acknowledge what they mean. So it can be a combination of caregiver grief and their loved one's personality that makes this so difficult.

I have a gentleman in an Assisted Living apartment whose son has been fighting the transfer of his father to a unit where there is more help.

"My father is not like that yet," the son told me. Then he added, " Is he?"

My first thought was to say gently, that yes, he is. But then I thought it was better to say, " It's hard for you to think of your Dad declining to that point, eh?" One focussed on the father, one on the son. But right then and there, the son needed some help, to be able to help his father.