An Alzheimer's Caregiver's Handbook: You Can Prevent, Minimize or Survive AlzheImer'sMRr's - Softcover

Donald Bowling was a Caregiver for his wife nearly ten years until her death in 1995. He was a trainer of elderly post-Alzheimer's patients in the Napa Aegis Memory Unit of California for two years. Napa Valley Hospice managed his care giving for the last six month of his wife's life.(Donald's writing) I was a School Principal and teacher of the handicapped for thirty years and retired to care for Penny. I required psychological treatments in preparation for her death. I consider that time of caution and sadness as the best job I ever had. That period of behavior change and stressful decisions made me feel that I had done everything I could and still makes me feel that I can do anything I want to. That is the feeling that every Caregiver can earn. I am now 87 and at stage three of Alzheimer's (described in Part 2 of this book) Thank God, I have kept Alzheimer's at that same low level through exercising and walking a mile a day. According to the National Alzheimer's Association about 111 million persons worldwide will have the disease by 2030. That will require at least the same number of Caregivers in the world to ensure the survival of all those human beings. The goal of this book is to ensure that the 11 million unpaid family Caregivers in this country have a source of knowledge that they can use to effectively answer the needs of their Alzheimer's diseased loved ones in the best possible way. Caregiver's need to know the difficulties in caring for these family members like my friend with the 82 year old sister at the stage 5, Alzheimer's. She began to react to changes in her normal activities by reaching into her diaper and smearing its contents on the house's walls and her brother. He said that he wanted to tell her, "If you do that again, I'll hurt you." Then he thought that her memory was so bad that she would not remember it in the next minute. He said to himself that her smearing was a way of complaining about having to go too long without changing the diapers. He told me, "shit, I'm the sick one, too lazy to have her diapers changed often." Alzheimer's Caregivers have to watch their language in many ways with these people with poor memories. Another example I know of is when a loved one dropped something of value his older sister/Caregiver said,"If you do that again, I'll......." . He probably wouldn't remember the, "What if......." She should have said,"Please pick up the pieces. " Then she should offer a food treat to cancel out the hurt feeling. Does that seem like a wimpy way of handling it? It does, I agree. But we are dealing with people who have to live in the present. Past or futures are not familiar to these folks. These sick seniors will be much different than the persons they were before the disease. Physical and mental changes caused by the random killing of brain cells by proteins will be like mentally ill or retarded persons that I worked with in State Hospitals. They could express only slight verbal insults that might increase to physical violence. The healthiest reaction to these changes requires the patience of the Biblical character, JOB. I have shared with you in this book the good and the negative things you may to view in caring for these tender souls. They have a childlike innocence that appears time after time that is priceless. I hope you can enjoy your experiences with these modified adults in the world. My experiences are priceless to me as yours can be.