ASOCIACION DE ALZHEIMER DE PUERTO RICO
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Edif. Santurce Medical Mall E-Mail: alzheimerpr@alzheimerpr.org |
Alzheimer's Disease |
FEELINGS
Alzheimer's disease affects the ability to think, communicate and perform activities in everyday life.
As people of all ages, the Alzheimer patient experiences feelings of happiness, sadness, fear, anger and jealousy.
As a caregiver you must recognize and respond to these feelings. A person with this illness needs to feel valued, dignified and positive about life.
As many people in their last years, the person with Alzheimer's disease must confront many changes, from their body image and retirement to changes in lifestyle and preparation for inactivity and finally death.
Many people also look back on their lives and try to make sense of what they have done. For example, frequently they review their past relationships and try to make amends.
Understanding the reactions of the patient due to the effects of the illness, the caregiver must help to confront these problems. Support can be given to a family member to confront these feelings, their sensibility, and humor by doing the following steps:
STEPS TO FOLLOW
Treat the Patient as a Normal Person.
Appreciate and know the Alzheimer patient as a normal human being using tactful words. Try to do everything possible to relate to this individual as a valuable human being with emotional and spiritual necessities.
Avoid talking about the person. People with Alzheimer's disease frequently are hurt when the caregivers talk about them as if they are not present, with typical comments such as:
"She is causing us a lot of problems."
"Yesterday was a bad day for her."
"She kept me up all night again."
Call the person by their own name. Avoid inhumane cruel comments. Also, avoid isolating the individual when there are visitors.
Communicate calmly and slowly.
Talk to them slowly and in simple sentences. Reduce the speed of your dialogue and lower the tone of your voice.
Give the Alzheimer patient time to hear your words, to prepare an answer, since he can take up to a minute to respond.
Maintain communication at an adult level and avoid baby talk, or expressions without meaning. Smiles and handshakes are important to establish an adult interaction.
Communicate one message at a time. The person with Alzheimer's disease can get confused with an excess of messages such as: "Good morning. It is time to get up."
"We are going to get dressed."
"Now it is time to have breakfast."
Remember that possibly the person with Alzheimer's disease is confused about time, or it doesn't mean anything to him.
Instead of saying: "John will be here at 2:00 o'clock sharp.", Say "John will be here after your bath."
Be Positive and Offer Confidence.
Be positive and offer confidence to the patient. Use expressions such as: "Everything will be alright. Don't worry. We are doing the right thing. We are going to get out of this. I am here to help you." Expressing your feelings will help to reduce the tension and help the patient.
Use expressions to comfort and not to control. Try to identify their feelings, instead of arguing about the facts. For example, instead of arguing with the person about going out, you could agree by saying; "Yes, it would be fun to go out." or "I want to go out too. Let's do it after we eat. I'm hungry." As an alternative, you could distract the person saying: "Yes, it is nice to go out" "What a beautiful sweater you are wearing."
Compliment the person for their accomplishments and the slightest success, saying comments such as: "That is very good. You are doing very well." or "You did a good job with that."
Instructions and Support.
Prepare the person to follow instructions. Instead of pulling the patient out of their chair or pushing them around the room, say comments such as: "You need to get up now." Right away, gently help the person get up from their chair or move across the room.
Make suggestions and take initiative. For example, don't ask: "Do you want to take a bath?" Instead of that, say "It is time to take your bath now."
Compare your Words and Actions.
Take into account your gestures and movements. Even though you could use nice and gentle words, the person with Alzheimer's disease can observe tension in your face and body. Your feelings will come out through the tone of your voice.
The subtle differences of words and sentence structure probably will confuse the patient. Use the same words at the same time you need to repeat the message. The person with Alzheimer's disease will not see similarities between different structures. "Please sit here" or "Why don't you come here and sit down?"
Maintain visual contact, smiling and touching to please and give confidence to the person.
Help the person remain independent.
Avoid taking responsibilities away from the person through comments such as: "You cannot do that. Give it to me. I will do it for you." Instead of saying those things they cannot perform, emphasize on what they can do.
Maintain a sense of humor and don't be afraid to play and joke around with the individual. A sense of humor can remain intact during the development of the illness.
Remember that a person with Alzheimer's disease wants to contribute to the well-being of the family. Don't be afraid to ask for help and cooperation such as: "Can you help me put these plates on the table?" It may take the person a longer time to do these tasks, but he will feel good about being useful.
Name and Talk About Emotions.
Help the patient with Alzheimer's disease with their emotional state by saying comments such as: "You look sad. This must be very frustrating for you." or "Really you feel mad right now, isn't this true? You know you have a right to be mad."
Acknowledging an emotion and giving it importance, could motivate a person to talk about these feelings later on. Also, don't be afraid to share your feelings when they express them. For example: "I feel sad too, but I am here to help you and we will come through this together."
When a person wants to talk about difficult and emotional subjects such as dying, don't avoid it or ignore the conversation by saying: "You don't need to worry about that", or "That won't happen."
Repeat Pleasant Activities.
Remember the value of repetitive activities. Walking or doing a pleasant activity such as selecting coins, can help to distract the patient from their anger or depression.
It is important to create a happy environment in their life, since many patients enjoy seeing old picture albums and talking about pleasant, happy events. You could also want to sing familiar songs that can bring back old memories and feelings.
Allow the person with Alzheimer's disease to tell stories even though they may repeat them over and over again.
Help the patient explore feelings with comments such as: "You really enjoyed visiting your uncle, didn't you? That was a very pleasant time for you."
Understanding the feelings and frustrations of the patient, will help the caregiver to react gently and sensitively to the needs of the patient with Alzheimer's disease.
Please send any suggestion, comment or problem to
alzheimerpr@alzheimerpr.org
