Alive Inside ...

 

Do you know a person with Alzheimer’s that seems to be unreachable?  Do they sit and mumble, rock back and forth or just stare into space?  Has interest and interaction with other human beings disappeared?  Sometimes all it takes is a little extra effort from YOU to realize they are still alive and can still teach us a lesson or two.  Watch these two amazing videos … then share with us how YOU have touched a person with Alzheimer’s. 

 

Gladys Wilson and Naomi Feil 

Henry

Share what works with your clients or loved ones.  Please leave us a comment below.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Thanksgiving Traditions at News from Nate. 

Please click HERE

 

The Holiday Season Can Be Overwhelming ...

When you are a caregiver of a spouse or parent with Alzheimer’s the holiday season can be overwhelming. A little understanding and preparation can make the holiday season enjoyable and special.

By Angil Tarach-Ritchey RN, GCM
www.AlzheimersReadingRoom.com

 

Here are some tips to make the holidays great!

1. Involve your loved one in the preparation. You can give your loved one small tasks such as signing holiday cards, hanging ornaments on the tree, assisting with holiday baking, and cooking, sorting decorations, flower arranging, table setting, and household chores, such as folding laundry, and dusting. 

Plan their involvement during family gatherings.

Peeling vegetables, stirring ingredients, folding napkins, helping set the table, passing out gifts, can all benefit you and your loved ones holiday experience.

Leaving a loved one with Alzheimer’s sitting alone or without appropriate activity and inclusion can evoke distress, sadness, or behavior problems.

2. Make sure you have all medications and supplies filled and ready for the holiday season.

There are medication management pharmacies that can simplify obtaining and dispensing medications.  They deliver, coordinate multiple physicians’ orders, verify orders monthly, and prepackage individual dosages, including over the counter medicines and supplements.

Also have a full supply of any incontinence products, or medical supplies available, so you do not have to get supplies at the last minute.

3. Evaluate the environment where you will spend the holidays. If you spend the holidays at home and your loved one lives with you, they are familiar with their surroundings and have a bedroom to rest in or retreat to, when they need relief from activity.

If you’re loved one is visiting your home or another family member’s home you will need a bit of preparation.

Make sure the environment is barrier free, and safe. Remove throw rugs, and reduce clutter, for persons with balance or ambulation problems. Keep a change of clothes available for any mishap with spills or incontinence. If there are special diet needs, including the texture of the food or drink, make sure the host or hostess is aware, or plan to bring your loved ones meal and/or drinks.

4. Prepare a quiet area in advance. Excessive stimulation can lead to anxiety, irritability, and exhaustion.

Plan for quiet rest, and a nap. Frequent breaks from the chaos of a house full of people can prevent anxiety, and exhaustion. If your loved one starts to appear anxious, take them to the quiet area before the anxiety escalates. Monitor facial expressions throughout the day as they often mirror underlying emotion. Fidgeting, hand wringing, picking at clothing or skin, pacing, and general restlessness are common signs of agitation.

Providing soft music and familiar items in the quiet area, as well as a soft and gentle massage can reduce the anxiety.

If your loved one is on medication for anxiety, you may want to pre-medicate before the holiday activities begin -- if the doctor’s order is as needed. If there is an anti-anxiety medication ordered and it hasn’t been given prior to agitation, make sure you give the medication at the first sign of anxiety, as it could take up to an hour to be effective.

5. Think about holiday traditions in your loved ones younger years and incorporate those into the holiday season. Alzheimer’s patients are able to recall long term memory much easier than short term memory. Was there special music, food, decorations or activities that were enjoyed years ago? Are there photo albums or stories from holidays past? This can often be an activity to be shared between your loved one and younger family members.

Photos and stories often provoke a memorable conversation of how grandma or grandpa enjoyed the holidays years ago.

The activity of sharing with the younger family members creates new memories. Are there old radio programs or music that can be found on UTube to initiate conversation and memories? Did your loved one enjoy music and singing? You can initiate a sing-a-long of their favorite songs of the past.

Many Alzheimer’s patients who can’t carry on a conversation retain the ability to sing or read. Are they able to read Christmas stories to the younger ones? A quiet break in the day with a Christmas story read to the family can be a much cherished activity.

6. Reduce embarrassment. Alzheimer’s patients are vulnerable to embarrassment, especially in the earlier stages of the disease.

If incontinence is a problem, be discreet, and don’t announce planned toileting or change of incontinence products. Educate the family prior to the events not to say things like don’t you remember, or I just told you that.

The fact is each time an Alzheimer’s patient repeats themselves, they believe they have only said it one time. So family members need to respond as if it’s the first time. Redirection can work wonders, so redirect your loved one to another area of the home, or to an inclusive activity.

If you find yourself getting impatient, ask another family member to take over involvement while you take a break, or ask someone to involve your loved one in a simple activity. You may need a quiet break as much as your spouse or parent.

Do not put a “bib” on your loved one during meal time. Either change their clothing prior to the meal, or plan on changing after. “Bibbing” an elderly person can initiate comments from younger family members in particular, like “why does Grandma where a bib?” We do not know the specifics of what an Alzheimer’s patient can or cannot understand.

It is extremely important to provide dignified care no matter how advanced the disease is. Do not belittle your family member with comments or actions that would make them feel like a child or present them as such. They are adults with a disease, they are not children.

7. Plan for help. Additional help can relieve the caregiving responsibilities with the holiday frenzy. If you have family members to provide respite ask for help, and schedule it. Have a family member provide care while you shop, attend to preparations, or just rest. If a family member is unavailable, private duty homecare can help wonders.

Caregiver’s can attend family functions with your spouse or parent so you can be relieved of the caregiving duties and just enjoy family. They can also bring your loved one to and from a family function for a specific time period. As an example, if you know the holiday events will be too chaotic or lengthy, you can have a caregiver bring your loved one to only the dinner portion of the event, and return home with them until the event is over and you can resume care.

Caregivers can also help your parent prepare for the holidays by assisting with sending cards, baking, shopping, decorating, and wrapping gifts.

If you think you cannot afford holiday care, plan it as part of your gift giving budget. This will not only be a gift to you, but to your loved one as well. Relieving tension and stress, as well as enjoying the holidays as the family member you are and not a caregiver, can bring a memorable and joyful holiday that will be much more meaningful than a traditional gift. Most agencies offer gift certificates. Ask family members to purchase care certificates in place of material gifts.

The Alzheimer's Store offers a wide variety of products including memory stimulating activities that can be given as gifts or purchased for holiday activites.

8. Understand that holidays’ are frequently a very lonely and depressing time of year for the elderly. They can get lost in the shuffle, and their feelings disregarded. Many have lost spouses, and friends. Recent losses are particularly difficult, including the loss of independence.

It’s important to take the time to include the elderly in your holiday preparations and plans.

Understand and take time to validate their feelings and initiate conversations about the positive memories they have. Begin a new memory by including a remembrance of a lost loved one. Whether that is taking flowers to a cemetery, making an ornament with their loved ones photo, or including a favorite past time of their loved one in the holiday activities, it will validate their feelings of loss.

When it’s a loss of independence, concentrate on engaging your loved one in simple decision making or tasks that can easily be accomplished. Thank them for their contributions and add simple compliments. Let them know that you understand loss of independence is difficult, but you are there for them, and will help them with what they can no longer do.

Do not take away independence by doing things for your loved one they can do for themselves. You want to maintain as much independence as possible for as long as possible. I always say, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Don’t contribute to the loss.

Preparation and these simple tips can make everyone’s holidays something great and memorable. These tips can apply to most family gatherings and functions. Keep the list handy for future reference and make all events the best they can be!

A very profound article from the New York Times.

‘A Very Ungrateful Old Lady’

By SHEILA SOLOMON KLASS

I am a legally blind octogenarian. I have wonderful adult children who often help me, but I can never accept their help gracefully.

It is a terrible thing to be a burden. They say I am not, but I know better. Perhaps many of you have parents like me.

My own parents, working class Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn, were ordinary people trying hard, but beset by the Depression and bad luck. And I was their burden: a second daughter when they needed a son. My parents were survivors and their fears were real, and I do not mean to belittle them. But they left me with a lifelong fear and loathing of dependence.

 

 

One day while playing kick-the-can on the street, a boy knocked the sharp edge of the open lid right into my knee. My weeping mother carried me to the doctor, who sewed it up for fifty cents, and for years afterwards my mother upbraided me for playing rough boys’ games and costing so much money.

I was determined never again to be a burden.

Now I am 86 and almost blind. I cannot read the bills that come in the mail nor sign my own checks. I must be escorted to medical appointments. My busy children are kind beyond measure, but I am uncomfortable in these situations. And being uncomfortable makes me sharp and unpleasant.

When my children run my errands, sort my medications, buy me delicacies, accompany me on medical trips — even do my laundry! — I am somehow reduced to that Brooklyn girl whose struggling parents just couldn’t cope — and it was her fault.

My children point out that this thinking makes no sense. But that there’s no logic to this is irrelevant. We are the sum of our years and experiences, and I never could add properly.

My daughter the doctor is constantly on call for me, and I am unable to accept it with any grace. She takes me every two months for a shot in my eye that controls my macular degeneration. The shot always scares me.

My daughter comes to pick me up and suggests we take a taxi. I nix that idea and say I prefer the subway. The A train. If it was good enough for Duke Ellington, I say, it’s good enough for me. So we take the subway. I get the shot. I always feel terrible afterward, blinder than usual and drained by the whole effort. My daughter suggests we call a car service to go home, but again I invoke the Duke. We go downtown on the A.

Once home, she looks in my refrigerator and offers to go downstairs to the great food shop and buy me a really fine lunch to make me feel better. I decline and tell her I know there’s enough food in the house. She makes disparaging comments about the wilted lettuce in my refrigerator, but I refuse any delicacies.

She’s eager to set up a book on tape or a musical recording to make my long blinder-than-usual afternoon pleasant. I decline.

Finally, on an irritated note, she goes away, and I am left in my silent apartment, with my wilted lettuce.

My children try so hard, and after all, they know what I like. My son and his family feed me gourmet dinners and I overeat, because I’m a glutton. My younger daughter sends me free passes to interesting movie previews and discussions, and I go and enjoy them (especially because they’re free) even with my limited vision.

So why can’t I just be grateful? Why am I so resistant, so irrational, so difficult and unpleasant? Because burdens aren’t grateful, any more than they’re graceful.

It is not that I am unaware of all that is being done for me. Quite the contrary, I am painfully aware of it. I hear the echoes from my childhood, accusing me, repeating a single word. Burden.

I don’t want to be taken care of, and I resent that I have lost independence — that really, I have no free choice. My life is now directed by other people the way it was when I was a child. That they are people who love me is irrelevant.
Sorry, kids, but I was never gracious, and it just gets harder and harder. I want the right, at 86, to play kick-the-can, to do whatever I choose, and that right has been forfeited to age and decrepitude, and I mind it terribly. Which makes me a very ungrateful old lady.

Do most people resent being old and losing freedom? Surely, they must! Perhaps they have better manners and have learned to be complaisant. But this is my life. Still.

Sheila Solomon Klass is professor emerita of English at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York. She blogs at blogginggrandma.com.

Happy Veteran's Day



A heartfelt THANK YOU to all our Veterans.  On Monday, Nate made visits to our clients who are Veterans.  Please read about his experiences HERE.

Happy Fall Ya'll

Gold among the brown,
Leaves of rust and scarlet,
Trembling slowly down.
Birds that travel southward,
Lovely time to play,
Nothing is as pleasant,
As a lovely autumn day!
---Carmen Lagos Signes

With the Fall season we turn back the clocks ...... 

.... pull down or put in the storm windows ....

 

... and pull out the rakes...

 

… we also want to make sure we check and/or replace the batteries in our smoke detectors. 

 

It’s important to help our senior friends with these seasonal tasks since completing them can pose safety risks to someone who may not be as strong or as steady on their feet.  Changing out the batteries in overhead smoke detectors can be hazardous for anyone but especially seniors who shouldn’t be balancing on stools, furniture or stepladders. 

 

Manipulating storm windows can be a chore for most of us but nearly impossible for an elder.  We all know what’s involved in raking and bagging up those Fall leaves but leaving them scattered about can cause potential accidents and falls.   

Checking on your elderly family members, neighbors and friends could go a long way in keeping loved-ones safe during this brisk, colorful season. We have a few helpful hints you can use to help your friends, family and loved ones this season.

Click HERE for a great Smoke Alarm Safety Checklist to print off!

Hate raking leaves ... most of us do.  It's one of those necessary evils but here are ten health tips for Autumn leaves clean-up from MedicineNet.com

1.     Avoid twisting your body while raking. Use your legs to shift your weight rather than twisting your back. Throwing leaves over the shoulder or to the side while raking involves twisting movements that can overly strain the muscles in the back.

2.     Use a properly-sized rake for your height and strength.

3.     Wear gloves to help prevent blisters on the hands.

4.     Bend at the knees, rather than the waist, to pick up items.

5.     Do some form of light exercise for ten minutes to warm up the muscles prior to raking.

6.     Try to vary your movements as much as you can to avoid overuse of muscle groups.

7.     Wear shoes with skid-resistant soles to minimize the risk of falling. Sturdy shoes can also reduce the risk of injuries to your feet.

8.     Don't overdo. Raking is an aerobic activity - you may need to take frequent breaks or slow your pace if you are an infrequent exerciser. (It's better to live with the leaves tomorrow than with a sore back!)

9.     As with any form of exercise, be sure to drink plenty of fluids to prevent dehydration.

10.  When you're done, gentle muscle stretching can help relieve tension in the muscles. A hot bath can relax muscles.

For an informative video on inserting the storm windows back into the window frames please click HERE .

 

 

“Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference"  Robert Frost