Care Giver – Take Care of Yourself
Posted by Kathleen Ryan in Alzheimer's Disease on August 10th, 2009
Unpredictably, the need for care givers to nourish themselves comes as a complete surprise. Women in our society discover that taking time out for replenishing their bodies and minds dredges up feelings of guilt. We have been trained to be there for others and taking care of our bodies appears to give the impression of selfishness and self-absorption. The care giving experience affords us the opportunity to change this perspective, to throw off the shackles of this cultural prison.
Care for the care giver is paramount in our overall responsibility to provide compassionate, effective care for our loved one. Imagine how your loved one must feel when she/he is aware at some level that you are frustrated, angry and exhausted carrying for her/him. Although Alzheimer’s Disease makes verbal expressions impossible or very limited, at a deeper level facial expressions and moods are experienced. The administrator at Green Hills Care Home where my husband George spent the last year of his life gave all of us family members excellent advice. She said “Before you go through this door to visit your loved one, I want you to put a smile on your face.” As we who are care givers know, that is sometimes extremely difficult for us. She reminded us of the importance of facial expressions and moods to our loved ones.
How can we set up a program to help ourselves? What is available in our communities to help us with our physical and emotional needs? First and foremost is respite care for our loved ones. Does your community provide a day care program for Alzheimer’s patients? Are there support groups in your area? Join one so that you may share your experience with others. Support groups, in addition to providing emotional support are an excellent source of information on care givers and programs in your area. Meditation. In my experience, daily meditation kept me centered and grounded. If a meditation group is not available to you there are excellent books on this very effective practice. Physical exercise not only improves one’s overall health but, the emotional effects of increased endorphins in the brain give us a new perspective on life. Journaling in the form of a diary or writing about one’s feelings can become the catalyst for emotional healing.
John Fox, founder of the Institute for Poetic Medicine, says “Poems can give voice to what is raw and wounded in your life.”
My advice – be creative in discovering care giving outlets for you. With a healthy you, your loved one will be receiving the very best care.
-Kathleen Ryan
Caregivers – Young and Old
Posted by Kathleen Ryan in Coping with Alzheimer's on June 10th, 2009
With the coming of age of the baby boomer generation the awareness and focus on care giving for a family member suffering from Alzheimer’s seems to have shifted from spouses caring for each other to children caring for aging parents.
It is very important for us to focus on the inherent differences in these two kinds of caregiving experiences.
PARENTS. This relationship by its very nature has the potential for disaster. No matter the age of the son or daughter, in the eyes of parents they are always “children” with the “father knows best” perspective. We have all had the experience of attempting to offer advice to our “normal” parents as they age, from suggesting that they might consider moving to a retirement community to encouraging them to put their affairs in order. Imagine this scenario as one attempts intervention in the care for an aging parent with early stage Alzheimer’s Disease. “I think we should have Mom evaluated because of her obvious memory loss” might elicit a response from Dad, “Mom has a wonderful memory, she’s just a little depressed, and that’s all.” Denial is a major factor for caregivers. Juggling family responsibilities and a parent with Alzheimer’s is asking a son or daughter to accomplish the almost impossible. The repercussions on the individual care giver and his or her family can be devastating.
SPOUSES. Those of us who have been care givers for our husbands or wives will unanimously agree that experiencing the loss of our marriages, our deep friendships, and our years of being there for each other is the most crushing experience next to losing a child that we have ever faced. We cope with the exhausting job of care giving during a time in our lives when we are aging ourselves. Grief and guilt are two emotions that tend to tear us apart.
Facing the realization that we alone cannot provide needed care for our loved one evokes feelings of guilt and evokes a feeling of reluctance to have others care for our loved one. Financially, we may be facing a financial tsunami. To be witness to our loved one as they disappear before our eyes is as cruel a punishment as anyone could impose.
For both groups of caregivers, community support groups or on line chat rooms provide invaluable emotional assistance.
Suggested reading: Finding Joy in Alzheimer’s: When Tears are Dried with Laughter by Brenda Avadian
-Kathleen Ryan
An Alzheimer’s Warning Sign
Posted by Kathleen Ryan in Alzheimer's Disease, Alzheimer's Warning Signs on June 10th, 2009
Your face looks so familiar, but… I just can’t remember your name. What’s happening? Is this an Alzheimer’s warning sign?
After caring for a spouse, parent, relative or friend with Alzheimer’s Disease, an inability to remember names understandably triggers a near panic response. But what are the facts?
Dr. Pat Wolfe of the Wolfe Center in Napa, California recently addressed this question with quite an unusual explanation of this “can’t remember your name” phenomenon.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, when our ancestors were living in primitive tribes in the savannah, face recognition was a critical survival mechanism. She asked us to imagine a small tribe of hunter gatherers. Would you recognize the face a tribal member or would you recognize the face of an enemy or of another tribe?
We all answered with a resounding, “yes.”
“Would you recognize their name, if they had one?” she posed. “Probably not”, we responded. Pat pointed out that our brains are hard wired for face recognition, not for name recognition. In today’s information overloaded society, when we are introduced to someone, we are probably focusing on their face, eye color or facial expression or on what they are wearing instead of on their name. This is where the technique of name association is invaluable. If we attach a meaningful association of any kind with the person’s name, we increase the probability that we will remember their name when we meet again. We have all had the experience of having the name we could not immediately recall popping right into our brain sometime later, not when we needed it!
So relax… difficulty in remembering names are not, and I repeat, not one of the Alzheimer’s warning signals. The reality is, as Alzheimer’s progresses, the face of a loved one cannot be recognized at all. We who have been caregivers can attest to the emotional devastation we feel when this happens. Maria Shriver, in her recent testimony before the House Committee on Aging poignantly reminded us of the wrenching experience with her father, Sargent Shriver, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, when she said, “He doesn’t know me any more.”
So, there is a big difference when you don’t recognize a loved one and you don’t remember a name of someone you’ve met. Get more information from the Alzheimer’s Association.
-Kathleen Ryan
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About The Book
Caregivers for those with Alzheimer’s are twice as likely to suffer from depression and/or physical decline but Kathy and George’s journey took a different route. Learn how she coped and how you can, too.
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