HEALTH & FITNESS - Face to face with Alzheimer's

Published: Monday | April 27, 2009


Keisha Shakespeare-Blackmore, Staff Reporter


When a loved one has Alzheimer's, it is very challenging for family members. Caring for the individual is difficult as the afflicted can sometimes become violent and will eventually require continuous supervision.

Jane Harrisknows exactly how taxing it is when an immediate family member has Alzheimer's. Her husband had it and she did not know until he was 62 years old, though he started showing signs a year before. She said one of the first signs was him washing the dog's pan in the kitchen sink.

Dizzy spells

"When confronted about it, he did not recognise that he did anything wrong. He would also leave the car door open, and when he went for his usual walks he would be gone for hours. He also started having dizzy spells."

She said that she believed he knew even before she did that he had Alzheimer's, and as time went by his symptoms became worse. She said she also suspected that he was not taking his medication at the scheduled times because he was not normally violent but one day he became angry and hit her. Once they went shopping in New York and she left him on the first floor to go to another department, two floors above; when she returned, he was gone.

"I could not find him anywhere. We checked the hospital and searched the store thoroughly but he was not there. We contacted the police and they searched, but it was not until about 7:30 p.m the following day that the police found him wandering in the streets of New York, not knowing where he was."

Harris told Flair that with those two incidents, she knew then that she had to put him in a nursing home. She notes that the entire situation depressed her; she was unhappy and wondered if putting him in a home was the right thing to do.

"I wondered what to do and where to go from there? It was not a good period at all. I eventually knew I had to do it and it was a decision only I could make. Though it was a very hard decision, I did it because it was too stressful and he needed the constant supervision that only professionals in a nursing home would be able to provide."

She said that it is very hard to explain to others what it is like having a loved one with Alzheimer's. It's difficult to watch them go through the different changes; not remembering who they are, where they are, plus caring for them.

Nursing home

Angela James is a trained nurse whose job it is to care for the elderly and patients suffering from Alzheimer's. She has been doing this for more than 15 years.

She agrees that working with Alzheimer's patients is not an easy task. They are much easier to handle when the disease is in the advanced stage because they just wander around. But, in the earlier stages, they tend to be very disruptive and can become violent. For her, working with Alzheimer's patients has its ups and downs. She recalls an incident where everyone was having lunch and one of the patients, who believed he was in charge, wanted everyone's attention. A female patient would not comply so he became upset, left the table and walked around the yard for a while.

When he returned, Nurse James said he looked rather upset, like he would grab someone. She intervened, he became violent, grabbed her in the chest and it took a male co-worker to get him off her. She also recalled that once, one of the patients bit her on her breast and another punched her in the eye. But, despite these negative experiences, she loves working at the home.

"It gives me a certain sense of reward to know that I can help someone who cannot help him or herself."

Names changed to protect identity.

Send comments to keisha.shakespeare@gleanerjm.com