Because this affects, EVERYBODY, even IF you don’t have someone who’d been diagnosed with it, yet! Off of the Front Page Sections, translated…
As Taiwan marches toward the super elderly society, dementia will be a major issue that the government will have to deal with in the futures.
The W.H.O. estimated that currently, the total population of those who’d been diagnosed with dementia had exceeded fifty-five million, and, it’s estimated that the number will increase to seventy-eight million by 2030, and by 2050, it’ll get up to 1,390 million. And, every three second now, someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and the total cost needed is one trillion dollars U.S. annually, and by 2030, the costs are expected to double.
Based off of just Taiwan, one out of thirteen elderly over sixty-five is demented, one out of five who are over eighty is demented, on average, there’s one out of five. In the twenty years to come, it’s estimated, that there would be one more who will be diagnosed per thirty minutes, with the population of the demented older adults continuing to rise.
“Didn’t you just ask that?” “Why did you forget again?”, the demented patient would always repeat the same behaviors, asking the same questions, forgetting what was just said to them, and calling their loved ones by the wrong names, with the unstable emotions, getting angry, or cussing out, changing in daily routines, forgetting where one’s residence is, getting lost when going out, forgetting to turn off the stoves, causing the housefires, getting into traffic accidents when they’re wandering outside, having delusions and hallucinations. And so, the caretakers, the families had to face the long-term worries, and the pressures from the caretaking; to the point, of how the lesser families, due to lacking of resources provided, the tragedies.
It’s the government’s duty and responsibility to, make sure that the elderly population live their lives with enough quality, with the dignity and health too.
First, the forums should be offered at the school setting, to help increase the awareness of Alzheimer’s in older adults, to take the label off; and, encouraging the local communities, the charitable groups, the shops locally, to devise a friendly space for the demented elderly to olive, to offer the courses for the families and the elderly to get involved in, to offer the breather programs needed for the families, the trainings of how to care for elderly with dementia, so the elderly patient can live in a familiar environment and get the treatments they are needing, to reduce the burdens of the individual families in taking care of their loved ones.
And, to set up a fuller, more comprehensive program of care, the medical and support system, to diagnose the illness quickly, to treat, to increase the quality of the network of care, to set up more communal care centers, so the families can get the needed information on how to care, how to utilize the resources that are available to them to help care for the aging.
To have more understanding for the demented elderly, more tolerance and respect, to offer help when needed, I’m sure, we can all, take part in this.
Nobody is an outsider when it comes to dementia. We must, set up a “friendly toward Alzheimer’s” country that’s, patient centered, right now.
Because, there are, more and more elderly getting diagnosed, this becomes, a pressing, matter, and, there’s no way we can, catch up to how quickly Alzheimer’s is, taking over, because we are living longer and longer compared to before, and, the deteriorations of the mind comes with aging, and, the government, the rest of the world, has only begun to realize, how serious this problem is for the society, that’s why, this is a call out for help, from everybody in the community here.
The beginning of Alzheimer’s, are never easy, as the elderly person still is, quite agile, and knowing, so, the families are, tested and, tried…translated…
Four years ago, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, my father-in-law, stomach cancer, the two of us, our two children worked together, arranged for my father-in-law’s surgeries, applying for the nurse’s aide, and we’d, tried our best to be close by to my mother-in-law, answering her repeated question of “where did your father go?” We waited until my father-in-law was released, the male help also arrived, but, through the webcams set up in their home, we saw that my mother-in-law telling my father-in-law, that the man was there, to murder them, that they needed to escape quickly……………Alzheimer’s had taken away her abilities to comprehend things, she’d thought, that the hired help was there, to take her, place in the home.
Seeing how my father-in-law was still living under enormous pressures, while my mother-in-law refused to let anyone outside to help her, it’d taxed us. My father-in-law saw our trials, and, agreed to find my mother-in-law a nursing home.
illustration from UDN.com
And so, we’d started, searching, from within the city, to the, suburbs, to the rural areas, and took my mother-in-law to the residential homes, as requested, for her to undergo the series of checks for Alzheimer’s, her full physical, every step, to taking her out of the home she was familiar with, placing her in the home, it’d all been filled, with the, challenges.
It’s not an easy thing to get my mother-in-law out of the house, even as we’d put the shoes on her feet, she would forget why she was going out, then, refused to go, and we’d understood, that her refusing to go, was from her feeling unsettled about the outside world. In the end, we’d used the excuse of “taking her on a vacation”, and persuaded my mother-in-law who loved traveling, to get her interviewed by three nursing home facilities, and selected one that’s closest to our house.
But, on the morning of her check in, my father-in-law told my mother-in-law, that he was due for an appointment at the hospital, then, left, and went to wait in the park, for news from us; my husband stayed in the living room with my mother-in-law, I took the time to go to her bedroom, packed up all of the things she normally used, at the same time, overhearing the repeated inquiries my mother-in-law asked, “where is your father? What’s he doing at the hospital? He’s, ill…………” And yet, past noontime, she still wasn’t, willing, to get out of the house, we’d switched the means, and asked if she wanted to go to the hospital to see how my father-in-law was doing, and finally, we were able to, get her shoes on.
Shortly after we started driving, she’d forgotten why she was in the car, we’d used the excuse of taking her on a vacation, to help her feel happy, but this was already after three in the afternoon. Because the nursing home requested that the new residents needed to have the members of the families staying for three days for them, my husband asked for three days off from work; and, just as we’d expected, as my husband returned home for the night, my mother-in-law started throwing her fits, giving the nursing home employees a hard time, we are all worried, that my mother-in-law will be unaccepted by the nursing home.
Grateful for the facility’s patience, and compassions, from three days, to a week, a month, to now, close to, four years, after the three years’ worth of pandemic, we couldn’t visit her regularly, and it’d made her Alzheimer’s worsened. And now, as we’d gone to visit her, looking at her hollow eyes, and that look of vacantness, it’d made me miss those days, of how she’d, “matched wits” with us during the earlier stages of her, Alzheimer’s.
And so, this, is something that’s, never easy, placing a loved ones into a nursing home, but, in the nursing home, at least, the elderly person would get the proper care that s/he needs, which is way better than the families, caring for the elderly on their own, and it takes the stresses, the burdens of caretaking, away from the families too.
You’d become a fish, in a, fish tank now, with all your family members, “tuning in” to that webcam they’d asked the nurses at the hospital to set up for them, to help them, surveil you, at those, designated, times.
You’d become a fish, in a, fish tank, only, you can’t swim freely like the fishes in the confines of that tank, instead, you’re, STUCK in that bed, with the tubes going in and out of you, that oxygen mask on your nose and, mouth.
what the elder, became…photo from online
You’d become, a fish, in a, fish tank now, only for those who cared about you, to “view”, at those, designated, time slots. And, there’s, nothing you can say, or do, to take the control of your life, back, as you’d become, incapacitated already…
You’d become, a fish, in a, fish tank, and I feel sorry for how your loved ones, treated you like, some rare species of living creature they’re, trying to, keep, alive………
You’d become, a fish, in a, fish tank, as you are, living out, these, final moments, of your, life…………
A bit, scatterbrained, as we age, is it, Alzheimer’s??? On the awareness of the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia…translated…
My son came home from work, changed into his loungewear, got into the bathrooms to wash up. I’d inquired, “had you had supper yet?”
He’d not immediately responded back, wiped his hands, turned around, told me, “Mom, when I got in, you’d asked me already. You’d been asking the same questions repeatedly lately!”
Suddenly came, that tiny voice, “Do I have, Alzheimer’s?”
Before the pandemic started, my retirement was very fulfilling, and I had a ton of activities to do. Yoga, learning to play a musical instrument, sudoku, and the frequent gatherings with friends, the trips away from home. But with the pandemic, a ton of my classes, and activities, got halted, the tempos of life changed, and, I had reduced my socializing too. There’s only families, and the stand owners of the marketplace I interacted with regularly now.
Recently, I’d found, that I can’t find my words to express myself well enough, becoming, forgetful, and, spent a ton of time, to find things I’d, misplaced, to make up for the minor disasters that occurred due to my, forgetfulness. Sometimes, it makes me, anxious, me being, scatterbrained now, do I have, dementia?
While in the conversations of the aging social circles, the topics of dementia/Alzheimer’s, never grows, cold. As every smiled and shared their own experiences of being, forgetful, there’s the worries, the fears, hidden behind, those, smiles on the surfaces. Would the forgetfulness of today, get turned into Alzheimer’s in the futures for us? Are there, the tips and the ways, to keep us, from alighting the trains of, dementia?
Based off of the experts, the biggest difference between Alzheimer’s, dementia, and forgetfulness, is the, awareness of illness. In the latter, the individual may realize, that s/he may have forgotten something, and as someone reminded them, s/he may be able to recall it, but the former, the individual’s mind would go blank, can’t even remember, that s/he had, forgotten. Whether it be dementia, or becoming forgetful, these are both the results of the deteriorated mind. The experts encourage us, to use the non-medication methods and means to slow down the process of deterioration, including, maintaining a daily workout routine, exercise the brains, set up a good social network, and healthy habits of living from day to day.
My son’s reminder, it’d made me more aware of the changes in my body and my mind in recently times, and I’d, gained a different perspective, for the limitations of the activities I’m involved in during the times of the, pandemic. Toward the pressing of the years, anxiousness, and retreating won’t slow down the process of aging, but, being active, more optimistic in our lives, that will, reduce the burdens of our own, old age a bit. I’d, opened up my calendar pages, started, planning the activities for a brand new year—reserving the new books, going to a circus, the meal gatherings, the workouts, oh, and writing too.
This is how I boost myself in the time being, and I hope, that a decade, two decades from now, I am still a healthy, and able-bodied version of my own, self.
And so, this is on the sense of awareness, but hey, becoming forgetful, that’s only natural, after all, you can’t keep remembering every single detail of everything you’d, encountered in your life, and having the alertness, the awareness of the disease, although this is absolutely necessary, but, generally, becoming a bit forgetful, that’s only a process of normal aging, it’s when forgetfulness, coupled with other symptoms of Alzheimer’s that are popping up in your daily lives, then, you can, start to think about how you should, get yourselves, diagnosed formally, and then, treated by medications or activities that can, keep your brains from, deteriorating, away.
Scatterbrained, leaving her things, all over the places, and can’t find them when she needed them…translated…
Am I becoming forgetful? Lost my concentration? Or, is there, a mischievous magical creature in my home? I’d often misplaced my items, then, those things would always, pop up somewhere, when I’d, given up on looking for them, to the point of how I’d, looked around, all over, many a times already, and yet, in a different time, the items “popped” out, at the locations where I’d looked for them before.
My watch I’d, misplaced for a long, long time, I’d given up on looking for it. Then one day, as I was sorting through the pile of recycled papers, I saw my watch in the box, with the clasp that’s, fallen, open; and the fruit knife “went missing” ad got “rediscovered” again by the same means, as I thought about getting a brand new knife, my daughter who was sitting in the living room, accidentally felt the knife, stuck between the cushions; and that tiny wastebasket in the bathrooms, how come it ran away after I’d cleaned the bathrooms? Oh wow, turned out it “went into hiding”, behind the toilet tanks, right behind the toilet lids. It’s a problem with the angles, no wonder I couldn’t, see it.
Another wayward thing, was the cup I used to brush my teeth in, the night before I still saw it, and yet, in the morn, there was only my toothbrush on the shelf, with the cup gone, missing, and I’d, lifted my head suddenly, and saw my cup sitting on the highest shelf. Like I said, there’s gotta be, tiny elves in my homes! But, later, my daughter confessed to me, that she’d accidentally knocked the cup over, that was why she’d placed it higher up. And, my reading glasses that “went missing”, and, as I was retrieving my stationery, then, I’d found them in the last place I’d looked for them, inside the desk drawers. Ahhhhhhhh! It must be my carelessly leaving my glasses as I’d gone to open the drawers? “nope, it was me, to TEACH you the lesson, you can’t remember well, and left things were you dropped them!”, stated my husband, teaching me the lessons, of putting things back after I used them.
these tiny creatures at work, hiding her things from her, illustration from UDN.com
Yeah, can’t help it, I’m constantly looking for things, I’m used to it, but, in times of emergency, I really get, angered by not finding them. Like on this day, I’d taken out a suit I was going to wear, then, I’d pulled out a scarf from the drawers, turned around, put my pants on, then, as I was about to put on that shirt, I can’t find it, odd! I’d not left the room yet, how can my shirt go, “missing”? I got angered, called out to these, mischievous spirits: “hey, that’s not funny, give me back my shirt!”, I was defeated, and wanted to find me another shirt to put on, and yet, that was when I’d found, that I’m wearing THE, shirt already!
Can’t give you a whole list of things I’d misplaced, but what set my mind at ease, is that this is, a “symptom” to people my age, so, it seemed, that I’m, still, in the, normal “range”, no need to worry too much, I suppose…………
And, this looked more like, scatterbrained-ness, because, you did NOT lose these items, you just, misplaced them, and forgot where you’d left them, but, this may be an alarm, because, that’s how dementia started, first, it’s the smaller things, then, you will start forgetting more and more, but, people in their elderly years are sometimes, forgetful, so, you don’t feel, that, alarmed, yet!
Because we all want that pretty cover, and if the cover ain’t pretty enough, then, we, FALSIFY the results to make it look pretty! The ETHICS of research, and not only that, this involves the lives of those with Alzheimer’s too! Off of the Front Page Sections, translated…
The international scientific journal, “Science” recently disclosed, that the key article on Alzheimer’s by the neurologist, Sylvain Lesné of University of Minnesota on the international journal, “Nature” had been, falsified. The experts stated, that if the article had been proven to be, false, it may not be effecting the direction of research of Alzheimer’s, but the allocation of the resources in the research of Alzheimer’s may have been miss-placed, causing the waste of funding to the research.
The Taiwanese Researchers of Related Studies are Also Found to Have Been Falsified
This incident was also found in relation to the drug development company in U.S. Cassava Science, that’s worked long-term with a Taiwanese scholar, Wang from NYU, in the related new medication, Simulfilam, the researches are also found to have the falsified data too, and the already published articles by this particular individual was retracted by the scientific journals, and the company is currently under investigation of the SEC and the department of public health, and the university is also investigating the researcher.
“If the thesis had been proven to be false, then, the origins of research on Alzheimer’s had been wrong”, Hu told, the resource allocation that was placed after this may have been wasted completely, that the researchers would have to set a brand new direction, and this would greatly impact the development of the drugs to treat Alzheimer’s for sure.
And so, this just showed, how sometimes, these R&D of the drug companies, in order to get the results to match the requirements, they’d, falsified the research, and this not just only affected the drugs that may need to get taken off the markets, but also, it’d, screwed up the entire direction which the researches on Alzheimer’s had been, based off of, and what have we been medication our elders with Alzheimer’s for the past decade or so, if the results of these important researchers had been, falsified??? Yeah, no wonder, their rates of deterioration is still quick, and not slowed down at all.
A place that’s set up, to offer the help, the support that these families with patients of early onset dementia needed, and it also, allow these patients with early onset dementia, to keep on contributing in their own means, their own, ways too, off of the Newspapers, translated…
The Stories of the Lives of Those Diagnosed with Early Onset Dementia
The day I’d arrived at Young Coffee, the servers were Chiu and Wu.
Chiu was interactive with the customers, “First time here? Do you like it here?” as the servers delivered the coffees, he saw the reporter flipping through the stories of the lives of the early-onset dementia patients, he’d gotten activated, “I’d made one too, let me show you!”, and, as I’d turned, I saw the report on the T.V. wall, on how the early onset dementia patient, forgetting what he was gong to do.
Twelve years ago, the fifty-three-year-old owner of the transportation business, Meng fell into a coma from arrhythmia, and days afterwards when he woke back up, he couldn’t, recognize his own wife, Chuang, forgotten how to write, bathe himself, putting his clothes on, his wife thought that this was the side effect from his stroke, and he’d gone into physical therapy for a whole year, but, no improvements, that’s when his wife took him to the neurologist’s for a test, and, Meng was diagnosed with vascular dementia.
As I was drinking the coffee, the shy Wu came over, and used his salesmanship to sell me some cakes, not really many words, thought for a very long time, then told me, “This tastes amazing!”, and, as everybody started getting the whole sentence to try to figure out what Wu meant, then they’d come to known, that this was Wu’s bakery, “The Sweet Memories Bakeries” pound cakes, that’s sold here only on the weekends.
The Fifty-Two-Year-Old Husband Had Dementia, Causing the Whole Family to Fall into State of Panic
When Wu was fifty-two, he had a stroke, which caused his dementia, the day he was formally diagnosed, his wife, Chen and he held each other at the hospital and cried hard. Wu due to his condition, could not work, and had needed to be taken care of around-the-clock, and needed to take the classes to help slow down the progression, his wife, Hsin-Yi had to keep the household economics, she’d stayed on working, and placed her husband into the daycare programs. Zheng-Bang worked hard for several days, placed himself in the seventy, eighty year old elders, did the physical therapy exercises with them, do the activities of singing, art, being younger, with a good physical health, he’d had a future of work ahead of him, it’d made him feel embarrassed, and refused to go to the daycare center again.
the photo of the cafe
from online, operating every Saturday from 10 to 4p.m
Hsin-Yi found, that the activities are all designed for the elderly population, that there’s a different set of challenges for the families, the patients of early onset dementia. She’d looked for a very long time, and found Young Coffee, my first call was with “Huei-Jen, we’d talked for two hours straight, it was like I’d finally found that piece of wood in the vastness, that someone finally, understood me.” Chen’s panic, loneliness, and feeling lost, is common to the loved ones with early onset dementia.
There’s No SOP, Only Learning as They Go
“The early onset is quite different than the elderly dementia, as the elders become demented, they were already dependents of the families, are in need of care. The younger type would feel, that they needed to find work! They are faced with loss of job, family conflicts, and other problems relating to these, the education of their young, as well as the caretaking of their, aging parents too!”, the assistant secretary of the Alzheimer’s Foundation, Lee is the driftwood that offered the chances of not drowning to Chen on the other end of the line.
Lee worked with the cases of early-onset dementia patients for many years, is the families’ go-to-person, she’d told, that there are, too many different and complex situations with the early onset cases, there’s no standard means of handling the cases, to even now, she’s still, learning as she goes.
For instance, a few years back, the foundation received a call, a woman who held a higher up position in a firm in her fifties, she was in the beginning stages, single parent, raising a child of only a little older than three, her parents are gone, with no one else she can rely on, she’d come to inquire, what arrangements she can make for her own child. A year and a half later, the woman deteriorated to the point of not being able to live on her own, the foundation accompanied her to the treatment sessions, helped her retire successfully, found a facility for her, and filed for the adoption papers for her child, each problem came too quickly, “there are a lot of case like this one, before you can think about what to do, you are, forced, to make the choices!”
The Youngest Worker is Forty-Five, with the Café as His Driftwood that Helped Him Stay with Head Above Water
In Young Coffee, everyone has a bitter story. Currently, the youngest is a man born in 1977, as another individual was diagnosed, he just had twins. And, for some, because formal diagnosis was hard to get, the individual was labeled as mentally ill, lazy, irresponsible, forced out of their work, gotten divorced from their spouses.
the early onset individuals mixing the dough to make the cookies…photo from online
And so, Young Coffee is a café from the outside looking in, but, it’s actually, a place where the families and the early onset patients’ place to go to learn, and to breathe in, also, a base for the foundation to help the families of these early onset dementia patients.
“Shen-Jen no longer recognized me, he can’t take care of his own needs anymore”, Liu, is also a family member of an early onset dementia patient, her husband, Lin was diagnosed at age fifty-four, in the beginning stages, he’d worked at Young Coffee, taken the classes too, but, dementia is like a long goodbye, no matter how attentive Liu took care of her husband, how much she’d put her mind into caring for him, it still, can’t defy the scripts of life that dementia had written down for her husband. And even as she’d known how it would end, his wife, Feng-Lien told, that there’s still the heartaches, the losses that come with it.
But, it’s not all loss. When Liu was younger, she sustained a brain injury, lost all the physical abilities of her body, as a registered handicap person, Liu had always been the cared for in her life, but she’d become stronger, with her husband’s early onset dementia, and became, a caretaker, even now, as her husband is of severe dementia, Liu still spoke for the early onset dementia individuals, fought hard for more resources for them, to get a facility set up to take care of all the early onset dementia patients, she said, all of these resources, her husband is no longer in need of, but they can help the families like them, who are in the same situations, to find that driftwoods, so they can all, float back to shore, without drowning.
with a professional leading the patients of early onset to do some physical activities…photo from online
And so, these are, the stories, of the families of the early onset dementia patients, and, this is a place, that offers the vocational trainings, the opportunities for work, so these younger generations of dementia patients can still continue working, until they can’t work anymore, and this is also a place, where the families can come together, to find that social support they’re all in need of, in taking care of their loved ones who’d been, diagnosed too.
The families here, with the long-term care needs, with the pressures of caretaking growing greater by the day, they’re all, about, to CRASH, and, this, is their asking of the president here!!! Off of the Front Page Sections, translated…
A Total of 24,000 Families in Taiwan with Long-Term Care Needs about to CRASH, Chen: We’ll be Discussing Loosening the Procedures of the Matter on Wednesday
Starting in July 13th, the country is loosening the restrictions on lockdown, the command center announced that the facilities can reopen, with the restrictions, but the daycare centers, the Alzheimer’s centers isn’t a part of those, a ton of caretakers screamed out: “We can’t take it anymore!”, the four major caretaking groups started up the “one man one letter to the president” act, hoping, that the ban of the daycare locations can be lifted sooner. Yesterday, the commanding center stated, that they’re, discussing the loosening of the rules with the experts on Wednesday (the fourteenth).
The Family Caretaker Foundation, the Taiwanese Alzheimer’s Association, the Elderly Welfare League, the Homecare Policy League of Taiwan started up the movement of one-man-one-letter to the president: the families are about to crash, from having the elderly locked in the home! Open up the daycare locations” movement, stressed that the 547 long-term care 2.0 locations the 494 dementia chapters, had been locked down for close to two months since the outbreak, with the 24,000 families with the needs, about to, crash, and they’d called out to the government, to see it as a huge problem.
before the outbreaks…
photo from online
The secretary of the Homecare Organization, Chen stated, that the micro reopening, tailored to the other needs of the businesses, but had, forgotten the needs of the group that needed it the most, based off of experiences from other countries, cutting off the services provisions to the Alzheimer’s, the demented population, is a primary factor for domestic violence, and tragedies.
The foundation had been receiving calls for the past two months, every day, with the family members in despair, that’s why they’re, speaking up now, and decided to start up the movement of “a letter a person” to the president, and up to last night, the foundation had received a total of 268 messages, all hoping the government lift up the bans on the service locations soon.
Chen pointed out, that there are, 800,000 families in Taiwan in need of long-term care provisions, with five-percent of them from the lower end of the socioeconomic statuses, most others were of middle class, they believed the government, and utilized the Long-Term Care 2.0 care locations, in the daytime, they’d sent their elders to the locations, and go to work, and now, as the outbreaks occurred, this service was no longer provided, a lot of the individuals had to look after their elderly, and work at the same time, which is too difficult, the pressures from caretaking, plus the pressures of economics, it’s, too cruel for the families.
The secretary of Taiwan Alzheimer’s Foundation, Tang believe, that the elderly with dementia would deteriorate even more quickly, if the government does NOT reopen the service locations. The locations provided more than 10,000 elders their needed activities, the government needs to encourage the elders to get vaccinated, to reopen the activities centers soon, to give the elders the motivations to get their vaccines.
the elderly, being, ever the more, isolated, because they couldn’t go out, interact with others…photo from online
Chen stated, that he’d considered that by the fifteenth, the elderly over sixty-five, who’d been vaccinated, already had the immunities, and so, on the fourteenth, he will be holding a expert discussion on the matter, to discuss how to reopen the activities centers. He’d stressed, that the elderly are weaker in their immunity against the illnesses, but the caretakers needed to watch out for their own psychological wellbeing too, that the command center already planned, that as the vaccination rates reached a certain point, the daycare centers will be, reopened.
Yeah uh, that’s still, BULLSHIT, from the government, I mean, hello, if you’d provided us with enough vaccines, then, none of us would be locked in now, and now, finally, this group of caretakers of elderly population with Alzheimer’s couldn’t take it anymore, and they’d, told the government their needs, that’s when this head of defense against MERS-CoV came out, and stated some bullshitting FACT we already know, wow, isn’t that, something???
“Child, let me tell you, that last night, my bedroom was cramped with a ton of people. And, nobody wanted to believe what I was telling them…”, every time I’d gone to see my father, he’d always pulled me, mysteriously, to the corners of his ward, and told me, he’d looked everywhere, and, there’s this fear, this sense of panic, in his gaze; although, I felt uneasy at the moment, I’d still worked hard, to calm him back down, back then, I had yet to understand what dementia was, and didn’t know, that hallucinations were a symptom of dementia.
What caused me to blame myself for so long was, before my father died, he’d forgotten everybody else but me, but, because I was too young, other than watching him suffer, I didn’t do a thing for him.
Many years later, my father-in-law who’d retired from a teaching post, was originally supposed to be enjoying his retirement, playing with the kids, but, dementia had, crept up on him. At first, he’d become forgetful, lost his balance, tripped and fell a lot, then, he had difficulties swallowing, to the very end, he’d needed people to help him, with his daily living routines, this, was defeating, for a man who once had the world at his feet, as he stood on the podium, lecturing away; he’d become a balloon, with the air let out, he wasn’t talkative from before, he’d become even more silent now. My father-in-law also started forgetting his family members one by one, but, he’d always remembered me, his daughter-in-law, and it’d reminded me of my own father, who was tortured by dementia before he died; the difference was, that this time, I’d used my words and actions, to show and tell my father-in-law, “Don’t be afraid, we will keep by your side.”
Dementia is torture for the elder, and, for the caretaker, it’s this sense of helplessness. Seeing how the ones we loved, with the memories, getting away from them by the day, their souls seemed to have been, locked up, in the depth of the oceans, it’s truly, trying, for both the patients and the families.
For me, my father’s dementia had kept me in regret for a very long time, and so, when I took care of my father-in-law, I’d given the efforts, so I won’t have any regrets again. In facing dementia, I’d learned to love, to accompany, and to show care and concerns, to keep us all, connected well together, even IF the world changes. Because of love, we will, NEVER forget.
And so, this woman regretted not being understanding enough toward her own father, and so, she was able to gain that understanding, when her father-in-law became diagnosed too, and, this sort of understanding can only come with experience and aging.
Another one of those “outerbody experiences”, perhaps???
When her body and mind became separated, it’s like you’re talking AT her, and she’d been on “autopilot mode” of response, with the ability to answer in yes or no, and used only simple words and sentences that don’t make sense to the rest of us.
When her body and mind became separated, what, can we do, to JOLT her mind, BACK into her body? By SHOCKING her with threats? But studies showed (don’t ask which ones!!!) that threats is a really BAD way, to get through to someone, isn’t it? When her body and mind became separated, there’s NOTHING we can do, but to just, wait, anxiously, until she “returns”, and sometimes, it’d be just a few seconds, then, as the day rolls on, the time became longer lasting, and now, she’d drifted for almost fifteen minutes, and, NO matter how hard we SHOOK her, it’s like, she’s O-U-T!
When her body and mind became separated, well, that, is what we have to deal with every single day now, as the progression of her illness goes. When her body and mind became separated, there’s NOTHING we could do, but to hope, that this current LAPSE of hers will be over………
Mirroring the World 
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