Senior Living Today

Alzheimer's and Dementia Warning Signs and Support

• The Ohio Masonic Communities • Season 3 • Episode 4

Share episode

Sometimes memory changes are a normal part of aging. Other times, it could be Alzheimer's or another type of dementia. Do you know how to spot the difference? There are 10 warning signs of Alzheimer's, and we’re discussing them all. Learn what could be normal, age-related memory changes and signs of something more serious you should discuss with your doctor. We’ve also got suggestions for where to find help if you or a loved one is having memory challenges. 

The Ohio Masonic Communities' Here to Help guides cover everything from what Alzheimer's is to what senior living community and contract types exist and more. You can access your free copy of the guides by visiting omcoh.org/sltguide. 

No matter what you or your loved one needs assistance with, our team is ready to help. Give us a call at 1-877-881-1623 and press option 4 to be connected with our intake coordinator or visit omcresourcecenter.org/slt.

Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Senior Living Today. With us today is Dayna Ritchie, program director of the Alzheimer's Association for the Miami Valley chapter. Dayna, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. So since this is your first time on our podcast, would you mind telling our listeners a little bit about yourself and the work you do with the Alzheimer's Association? Sure. So I my name is Dayna Ritchie. I am the program director like you said, for our Miami Valley chapter, which is nine counties surrounding the Dayton area. I have been with the association over four years. I actually have more of a business background. My mother, unfortunately, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. At the same time, my father in law was in the late stages of frontotemporal dementia. So I was impacted by dementia all at the same time and became a caregiver myself. And, now work with the association to try to help other families like mine. Unfortunately, I didn't know about all the programs and services that the association offered when I really needed them. And so my team and our volunteers, that is our mission to make sure that until there's a cure for this disease, people know about the free care and support that we provide. And we do that through education programs, support groups, and free care consultation. So we do have clinical staff, nurses, social workers, licensed nursing home administrators that can also provide, you know, free care planning for our families, as many as they need as we go through this disease. It can be a longer journey, and it can plateau from time to time and then free fall again. And so our families do need that one on one care hope, and in consultation and, you know, emotional support from us from time to time. So we're happy to provide that in addition to the support groups and the education programs. Well, once again, thank you for joining us today. And we're actually going to touch a little bit on the education side of Alzheimer's. And we're going to dive into the ten warning signs that are associated with Alzheimer's. So let's go ahead and dive in. I know the first one is memory loss that disrupts daily life. And I know that sometimes it can be hard to distinguish what memory issues are just a normal part of the aging process, or signs that it might be something more serious, like Alzheimer's or another form of dementia. So what should our listeners be on alert for? Yeah. So something that tends to be normal is, you know, just forgetting names or appointments. The key is that we can remember them later that it does come back to us later. My staff even teases me that when I pause when I'm speaking, they know I'm trying to remember one of their names. And, and I have, I've been assured that that is very much normal aging. What we're talking about here, what’s key to this symptom is the fact that it's really disrupting your daily life. So you are forgetting very important dates or events. People are telling you that you're asking the same question over and over again, but you do not have recollection of that. You may also be increasingly needing to rely on memory aids to help you. You know, your, family is is telling you that you're missing meetings and appointments and they're trying to help you now use, you know, your smartphone to put things in your calendar. Those are the type of signs and symptoms you normally would notice in this area. And again, it's it's beyond just, shoot I went to the store and I forgot to buy milk. It's much more than that. So I always talk about with my mother in this sign or symptom, you know, she was she kind of created post-it notes before they existed. In my mind, growing up as a kid, we always had little pieces of paper stuck on the front of our kitchen cabinets reminding her about doctor's appointments, dentist appointments. We always had a big calendar that we wrote everything on. That's just who she was as a person. So I wasn't really concerned when I saw a lot of post-it notes in her calendar and on her kitchen cabinets when she turned 70, but I did notice a small cluster together that I, I went over to look at. And they were actually...she wrote down the name of her favorite song, the name of her favorite Cologne or her favorite flower was. She was actually using those memory aids to remind her who she was and what was most important to her. So that's something that's much more concerning than just, you know, running 30 minutes late for an appointment or for, you know, mixing up our grandchildren's names. No. And I think that's a great example. So really, when it comes to the point where it's disrupting your daily life, that's when it's time to be a little more concerned about some of those times. Yes. So I know the second warning sign is challenges in planning or solving solving problems skills. Can you give our listeners a few example of what this might look like? Yeah. So this is always a time when I introduce that we all have a baseline, you know, kind of like I said before about my mother, who she was even in her, you know, 30s and 40s was someone who made a lot of to do lists, who wrote out a lot of reminders about, you know, appointments and grocery list and that that's who she was. And so we stay who we are. We're not going to necessarily just turn into a totally different person when we hit 65. So you really have to think about what you know about this person prior to your concerns. So, for example, some of us have just never been good with math, right? We can't double a recipe well. We have to buy extra materials when we're cutting something because we, you know, don't tend to measure things out right. You know, there's some people that, they, they overdraw their checking account on a semi-regular basis or we've known at some point in their life, you know, the electricity was cut off because they forgot to pay the bill, and that's just who they are. And so that's not so concerning if they're just continuing to be who they have always been in their senior years. But at the same time, we also know people who, you know, they are CPAs, for example, and they don't have problems with math. Math has been their whole life. Or, you know, they're still balancing their checkbook manually on the registry, and they will stay up all night to find that extra quarter that they know they have in that account. But the bank is telling them they're not, you know, they've gone to the teller before to try to find this quarter. If a person like that is now having problems, you know, remembering to pay their bills or overdrafting their accounts, that's something much more concerning, right? So we all have different abilities when it comes to planning or problem solving. So you will have to think about who this person is, who you've always known them to be. And if you're seeing challenges in that area now, compared to who that person has been, and a lot of times it does show up in math or managing finances. My mother was having a hard time with old fashioned clocks and getting, her alarm set, properly. That whole solving the problem of where does the the alarm hands go? That was starting to be a challenge for her all of a sudden. So those are the type of things we're looking for. And I think that's such a good example. And just to point out, I'm sure this applies to some of the other signs that we're going to look at. But this isn't a black and white. It's not going to be the same for everybody. You really have to look at the person, what's normal for them, and then what changes are you seeing from what's normal. Yeah. And that's really true of this whole disease. You know, a lot of times when people do call us for care consultations they’ll say, my loved one just got diagnosed and I need to know what's the next year going to look like for us, or what's the next five years going to look like for us. And unfortunately, there's there's not an answer to that. This disease is very individualized. Some people can progress through it very quickly. Some people progress to it incredibly slowly. Some people will never show some of these signs or symptoms that we talk about, you know, maybe just 1 or 2, but not all ten. It's definitely not a situation of, well, you got eight of the ten, so you probably have Alzheimer's. We're not here to diagnose you for a particular disease. We're here to talk about what's normal and what's not normal. There's actually a lot of things that can happen to us naturally as we age, that can also present in these signs or symptoms. So we can have, dehydration, vitamin deficiencies, thyroid issues, more medication that might be interacting with other things that we take, and we can have urinary tract infections. Women are somewhat used to maybe having those when we were younger and they're usually very painful. That's what we remember. They don't always present with pain when we get older. And they can be much more common as we get older. And those can also look like these signs or symptoms. So it's really important because it is so individualized that you talk to your doctor about any of these concerns you have from listening to podcasts, because it it may be dementia, but it may actually be any of those things I talked about as well as, you know, lesions on the brain, tumor on the brain, there's all kinds of things that can cause these signs or symptoms. It's just it's very important for you to understand that they are not typically normal aging. And so you do do need to talk to a doctor about these concerns. Absolutely. So another common warning sign is difficulty completing familiar tasks. So what should we be watching for with our loved ones when it comes to this sign? Yeah. So definitely anything that's so routine here. So having trouble driving to a familiar location, maybe they're a regular golf player or a regular card player, and they're having some problems remembering the rules of the game. Now, anything that's very routine or rudimentary for them as a person, and it's now becoming a little more difficult for them to, be successful in executing those tasks. Like the caveat here, we always talk about for more typical age related changes isn’t anything that has to do with technology. And we always, you know, people joke about that. But but that can be really true, right? Like if you're having to ask your grandchildren to help you with your new smartphone or the brand new remote they gave you for your television like that, that's pretty typical. That, that that happens to us as we age. Also, if it's technology, but it's things with technology that we rarely use. So remember, these are familiar tasks that you're having problems completing. If you know, this weekend you want to defrost, hamburger patties in the microwave. And you you don't think you've ever used this defrost on this microwave. So you're a struggling maybe with how to do that. That's not necessarily a sign. The sign that we're talking about here. It's these familiar tasks that we're having a hard time completing. So the next warning sign I would like to touch on is confusion with time or place. When would this be concerning or what should we be looking for with this warning sign? We can get confused with the day of the week. You know, even for me personally, sometimes Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday will run together. But I know here we are right? Monday is if we feel a certain way, Fridays, we feel a different way. But we know how to figure it out. We know how to use our tools, our calendars, our smartphones. We don't wander around all day thinking, gee, is it Wednesday or not? This is something much more pronounced. And this is this, unfortunately, is kind of the sign that, that convinced my sister and I that we need to have my mother go to her doctor and talk with her about some of the signs that we were seeing. So my mother, tried to go to Thanksgiving lunch at three in the morning. So that's true confusion with time or place. Think about what it looks like when you back out of your garage at three in the morning. Would you think that that's lunch time? And she, we know that this happened because she had told us that she had some concerns she might be getting lost. And so we put a tracker on her car and she actually was, didn't appear to be getting lost. But we started seeing things like this where she would be going to Sunday morning church on Tuesday afternoons or trying to go to Thanksgiving lunch at three in the morning. She actually went to my sister's house, quote unquote, three different times between 3 and 4 a.m.. And the really sad thing was she wasn’t actually at my sister's house. She was 3 or 4 houses down to a house she'd never been to. And fortunately, they must have been out of town because they didn't seem annoyed and didn't call the police when she was ringing their doorbell in the middle of the morning trying to go to Thanksgiving lunch. So it's much, much more pronounced in confusion of time or place versus just, you know, I thought for sure this one store I've been to six years ago is on this corner. Or I thought it was Wednesday. And I just realized it’s Thursday after I looked up my phone. It's really not understanding the passage of time. The differences in seasons. Or in my case, you know, understanding when it's pitch black, it can't be lunchtime. So just much more pronounced than, you know, I thought my meeting was at 11 today. It's actually at noon. So I think that's a good distinction there. Yeah. So the fifth warning sign is trouble understanding visual images and spatial relationships. Can you give some common examples of what this might look like? Yeah, this is actually I feel like one of the less known facts about the disease. So it's very common that our eyeballs will age. Right. And so we will potentially have cataracts or glaucoma or need reading glasses as we get older or need a higher prescription of glasses as we get older. So those things are normal. Eyeball health, really isn't what we're talking about when we're talking about visual images and spatial relationships. There's actually a part of the brain that controls things like our depth perception and our peripheral vision, as well as our our ability to see different textures. So, you know, be able to pick out green salad on a green plate, that's all controlled by a part of our brain, not a part of our, not our eyeballs. So we can be saying that we're having problems with our sight, but we go to the doctor and the eyeballs, and the vision and the eyeballs check out to be fine. It's really this part of the brain. So we may notice issues with our loved ones having problems judging distance. They think things are much closer to them than they are, so maybe they fall, or they're dropping a lot of things, or they think that something's much farther away than it actually is. And so they're running into things. They're sideswiping mailboxes and fences. And then that that, spatial relationship is important to being able to determine color and contrast. So sometimes, you know, unfortunately, something that's related to this, a lot of people don't talk about, not all, but some of our folks, when they're struggling with this piece, they may be going to the restroom. And they are in their bathroom, but they can't find the toilet. And they know they're just looking for a bowl shaped item. So they may then maybe urinate in the sink, or women may be urinating in, like an open trash can. And so what, how, why would that happen? And how is that really dementia? Again it's, most of our bathrooms in the United States everything's all one color. The fixtures are white, the floors are white, the walls are white. And it can be really hard than if you're having problems with the sign or symptom to pick out the the white bowl shape thing that is actually the toilet. And in most of our bathrooms we kind of hide the toilet. It's one of the last things you come to when you walk in to the bathroom. And so you may actually notice things like that, that, people are really struggling again to find what they're looking for, even though it might be right in front of them. And it has to do with this depth perception and peripheral vision and spatial relationships and being able to to to pick out contrast and color and depth differences. So I know the one thing you mentioned, for example, is like the salad on a green plate. So could we see this even affect someone's eating habits or like how much they're eating off their plate? Can it play into that as well? Yeah potentially it can. If they're getting frustrated and trying to find their food. Also, you know, sometimes they're just overwhelmed by choice as well. It can be really hard to concentrate and to focus with all these things we've talked about so far. And so sometimes when there's too much choice, we just choose nothing. And, and actually with our eating habits, you know, I did notice that I've had other people talk to me about their loved one losing a lot of weight. Sometimes we forget to eat. Um, our brain also plays a big part in us feeling full or hungry. So if our brain doesn't tell us we're hungry and we're a little lost in place and time, we may not realize that we've been skipping meals. That you can also have the opposite happen. For example, my father in law with frontotemporal dementia and the part of the brain that's impacted first with that, he never felt satiated. And so he would just eat and eat and eat and never, ever feel full. And that was a huge change in routine for him. He was he was a very slender, active, healthy, nutritious eater. And he went to somebody who was just very ravenous. So you can see, potentially lots of weight gain or weight loss. And it may be because of, you know, having a hard time if we do have similar color things on a plate. It's more likely, though, because that's not going to be constant. It's probably more likely that maybe we're forgetting to eat or not feeling full or hungry. So new problems with words and speaking or writing is the sixth warning sign. So what should we be watching for if we think our loved ones might be experiencing this problem? Yeah. So it's really kind of having a hard time following or joining in on a conversation. They may be telling you this great story, and all of a sudden they just get lost in their own train of thought. And they can't, they don't know how to continue. You know, sometimes when we're talking socially and somebody interrupts us, a waiter comes to take our order, you know, we can say to each other, now what was I talking about? And our friends and family can help us jog our memory. We're having short term memory issues potentially, and so we don't have that ability to, retrace our steps and remember or recall what it is that we're talking about. We also may just keep repeating parts of the story over and over again, or in the space of an hour, tell you the same story a couple of times. We may be having a hard time finding our words. So we may kind of make up words, or we may start using just a common word when we can't find our words. So with my mother, the word was thingy, thing with a y. Somebody else told me an example where the word was unit, and they started to notice as they spoke to their father, that he was using the word unit a lot more often in his sentences, and that was really kind of what he was inserting when he was having a hard time finding the right word. It can also impact your writing. So my mother was again an avid to do list person. She made very specific grocery lists. She also loved crossword puzzles. So she was a great speller. She had beautiful handwriting, but I did start to notice that she was having problems spelling and and was starting to spell things phonetically. So cheese had a Z instead of an S. And as it progressed, I would have to literally sound out what she had written down, sound it out phonetically to try to figure out what common food items she put on the list. She did eventually even lose the ability to sign her own name on a card so it can impact your writing. And your speaking as well. So next on our list is misplacing things and losing the ability to retrace our steps. So, for example, I know I misplace my phone and keys, you know, quite frequently, but when does this go beyond a normal misplacement of something and become actually concerning? Yeah. So that again, the key here is ability to retrace your steps. So it's really frustrating when you lose things. For some people it's more common than others. But unfortunately even the best of us do lose things. And it's that ability to remember the last time you used that thing or saw that thing, and you just don't have the, ability to go back in time and retrace those steps. We may be looking for, like, your phone or your keys, and we also find them in very weird places that wouldn’t make sense that you would put your phone or your keys, like the freezer or the microwave. Sometimes we also start to notice that our loved ones are getting very suspicious, and they are accusing other people of stealing their items or moving their items because, again, they don't have that short term memory there to help them retrace their steps. So, you know, example of this is today, you use your key to unlock the back door to come into your house. And the phone is ringing. And so instead of putting your keys in that little bowl there by the back door where all the keys go, and have always gone for the last ten years, you carry the keys with you and you put them down by the phone. And so you take your phone call, you're done. Three, four hours later, you need your keys and you can't find them. They're not in the bowl. You also have no recollection of the last time you used them. So when you or someone else finally finds them by the phone, you are accusing other people of, you know, somebody moved my keys. Somebody is trying to mess with my brain because I would never leave them by the phone. You know, for ten years they go here in the bowl by the back door. So sometimes we become very suspicious or accusatory when we have this disease as well, because lots of things are happening to us that seem suspicious. There are things we know we wouldn't normally do, but we don't recall doing them or why we would do them. So we start to become suspicious of our friends and family and accuse them of, you know, stealing things or moving things. That's just the logical option for us. My my mom accused me of stealing her bananas. You know, it's it's always usually silly things too like those were her most prized possessions. But she couldn't find the bananas, and she knew that I had taken her to the grocery store, so she called me, telling me that, you know, I had stolen her bananas instead of jumping to the conclusion, maybe we forgot to buy them or maybe the bag boy didn't put them in our car. Maybe they're still in my car. No other excuse was possible, but that I stole the bananas. So that accusation can also come about in this particular sign or symptom. Yeah. And I'm glad you touched on that, because I think the accusation and like you also mentioned, not being able to retrace the steps is the real differentiator between just a normal misplacement of something, which we all do at times, and it actually might be becoming a problem. Yeah. So let's get dive into warning sign number eight, which is decreased judgment or poor judgment. So what does this mean? And what should families be looking for? Yeah. So everybody makes a bad decision from time to time, right. We're not all perfect. We might forget to change the oil in our car or, you know, some of these fancy cars I can't even figure out when I'm supposed to be changing the oil. So that can be pretty common. Usually, you know, this we see more when it comes to maybe dealing with money or in our grooming habits. So unfortunately, senior scams are real. There are lots of seniors that have no cognitive issues that are targets for senior scams. And so it's it's actually not even a sign when one of our senior citizens has been targeted by a scam unfortunately. But you're looking for something that is judgment that's not typical of of what they would usually do. So when it comes to money, for example, you know, my mother was always a pretty charitable person, and we knew her causes that she had given to for years. But then one year around Christmas time, she fans out about 26 different calendars. And asked my sister, who wants a calendar for the next year? And they were calendars from all these nonprofits she'd been donating to. And so she had just started freely giving anybody who sent her something in the mail, you know, a $10 check. Everybody got a $10 check when I started to dig into her, into her, bank account. And if you mailed her on Monday, you got a $10 check. And if you mailed her again on Thursday or she didn't remember, you got a check on Monday. So you got another one on Thursday. And so I started to realize through these calendars, and when we went to do our taxes and all these tax statements that she was giving. Her charitable giving had quadrupled from what it had been, and for somebody on fixed income to be giving hundreds and hundreds of dollars away every month, that was very abnormal for my mother. Again, sometimes we can see this in grooming. So you may know someone they never leave their home without their lipstick on or without a clean shave. Their hair's always perfect, and all of a sudden they're looking more disheveled on a regular basis. You know, we can all be caught in a bad moment. But if you're noticing on a very regular basis now that their hair is not combed, they're missing, parts of their face when they shave, their clothes aren’t buttoned up right. Maybe it doesn't smell like they've been brushing their teeth on a regular basis. Those kinds of changes in grooming can also be a sign or symptom. Sometimes that's poor judgment. Sometimes that's because, again, that can become a really complex task. If you think about brushing your teeth, you know, I always say if an alien dropped down here and we had to work together to write all the steps to brush our teeth, it's a whole paper full of steps. There's lots of steps in it. And so we may be halfway into that. And we're holding this brush with some paste, and we don't know what to do with it now. You know, we, it's a brush so maybe we comb our hair with it or we smell the paste and it’s a mint so we just swallow it and we don't actually brush our teeth. And so sometimes these activities we've been doing for a really long time that have lots of steps to them, we can get lost in those steps as well. And they're showing up in less grooming, or hygiene then we usually would have. So next let's talk about withdrawal from work or social activities. What would this look like in someone with Alzheimer's or another form of dementia. Yeah. So again, all the things that you've talked about, we've talked about eight different signs and symptoms already. So if you're someone who's experiencing a couple of these, you may not really want to participate in a lot of social activities or things with other people. You may have a hard time keeping up with your favorite sports team or a game that you usually play with your family. You may also just be frustrated that people keep telling you that you have already told this story once tonight, or that you keep asking your question repeatedly that you have no recollection of asking. And so you you tend to withdraw. You feel like something's not right, and you don't want to expose yourself to more of that ridicule, or confusion. And so, you, you know, you may just not want to participate in things that normally you'd be very excited to participate in. And again, remember a person's baseline. You know, my mom was kind of shy, a little hermit. It wasn't abnormal at any time in my life that she wouldn't want to participate in a social activity. So this wasn't something really obvious with her. But for somebody who's the life of the party, never turned down an invitation for dinner, and now all of a sudden they're withdrawing a little bit more and they they're making excuses. And when they do come out, they seem very confused. This is a sign or symptom for them. I always say when we talk about the sign, though, if this is the one sign that concerns you the most, or the only sign that's really hit home for yourself or someone in your life, have they're hearing checked. This is also a very common sign or symptom for someone who's experiencing hearing loss that they want to withdraw because they can't follow a conversation. When we get into crowds that are very noisy, it's very hard for us to hear, and we we don't like to admit we're getting older and we're experiencing hearing loss. So we withdraw. This is exceptionally important, though, when it does come back to cognition, because there is research to show prolonged hearing loss can increase your risk of dementia. So even if you chalk it up to, well, it's just hearing loss then that's why they're withdrawing, you're still not free and clear because that can lead to dementia over time and will increase your risk of dementia if you don't, you know, take care of that. And get some hearing aids. And, you know, honestly, every once in awhile it's not even hearing aids. Sometimes we have wax buildup. We need our ears cleaned out and it's pretty painless. So again, it's always best to on the side of of talking to your doctor if you're experiencing even something like hearing loss, because it can lead to much bigger issues if you don't take care of it. Absolutely. So our last warning sign that we're going to talk about today is changes in mood and personality. I'll say that this is something we hear quite frequently from the families that we work with at our communities. So can you talk about some of the changes in personality that might typically be seen in someone developing Alzheimer's? Yeah. Well, like, we said, a lot of times they're suspicious of others. But they can also just be really emotional, definitely when they're out of their comfort zone. There could be anxiety or confusion that you're seeing, maybe even some aggression, but sometimes even in their own home or, you know, places they're really familiar with, they may be much more emotional. My mother was a type of person she would cry at the hallmark commercials and the tissue commercials. Right? That's that's who she was. But now she was crying at really benign things. Like she broke a little Walmart drinking glass in my kitchen, and, you know, she erupted like she just broke the, you know, most prized heirloom in our family. And so she was, her emotions were just not really matching the situation. And so it's it's really common. You know, as we get older, we don't like change. We don't like to have our routine disrupted. And it makes us a little, a little irritable because, you know, we've had to adapt to change our whole life now. And it really seems like even to me that we're being asked as a society to change more and more and more and more. And so it does get irritating. And it's kind of, you know, it can be very common when we're just frustrated with our routines being disrupted. But this is something much more pronounced than that when we're talking about just totally different moods or personality. Again, with my father in law who had frontotemporal dementia, the part of the brain that's impacted first really is what stores our personality and our filters and our inhibitions. So he went from a very kind, mild mannered, kind of socially awkward engineer to the life of the party, you know, who went up to strangers and started dancing with them or, you know, was creeping out the cashier at Kroger, somebody he was totally not and ever had been. That was an extreme, extreme personality change in him. And it's easy to think that that may be a midlife crisis or caused by depression or something else severe, but it really can be due to a dementia that's impacting that part of your brain because your personality is is actually stored in your brain. So I think circling back to, once again, you know, what is normal for your loved one? What is normal for them, what are their normal personality traits and behaviors? And if you start to see a large shift in that and very big changes, and it might be time, to see a doctor or talk with someone. Absolutely. Yeah. You can never err on the side of going to see the doctor. And unfortunately, some of our general practitioners will just kind of shrug it off as potentially normal aging. So you really have to be an advocate for yourself or your loved one. You know, the doctor sees them for ten minutes once or twice a year. You are living with them or seeing them on a very regular basis, or you know yourself, right? So you really have to push and advocate if you feel like, no, this is something much different than what I think normal, normal aging is, you know, to get a diagnosis, you should be getting blood tests and possibly brain imaging. You know, we want to rule out other things that I talked about before. So, you know, we want to potentially even have some longer cognitive exams where a professionals trying to figure out what part of the brain may not be working where where we're really struggling, to determine if it is dementia or something else. So the diagnosis is kind of a process. And if you're not getting that, if a doctor is just saying to you, that's just normal aging or, I've heard, well, you might have a touch of dementia, like, you have a touch of a cold or, you know, half pregnant or something like that. That's not really a diagnosis. Dementia is just an umbrella term. So we want things like Alzheimer's, vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia. Lewy body. Those are the diseases. Dementia is like telling someone they have cancer, but not telling them what type of cancer they have. So you really, really have to advocate with your physician if you don't feel like you're being heard. Even if this is your family doctor you've gone to for 30 years, you need to seek out another professional. You need to ask for a second opinion. You need to ask to go to a specialist. So when families do start to see these signs in their loved ones, what's next? What can they do to help or what next steps should they take? Yeah. Well, I, I like to try to provide some levity because this is a deep topic. So I always say here's what not to do. Please don't call your sister and say, hey, I just listened to this podcast with the Alzheimer's Association. I'm pretty sure you have dementia. Nobody wants to be told they have dementia. Nobody wants to go to the doctor's office to be told they have Alzheimer's. That's something, not something we're really excited to hear. What you should do is talk to them. One about the things that you learned around the signs and symptoms, and to make them aware there's lots of things that can cause these signs or symptoms. You know, I tried very hard not to even use the Alzheimer's word. My my grandmother had had Alzheimer's, and that was a bad word in my house. So we never said Alzheimer's or dementia. We just started talking very empathetically with my mom about what we were seeing and why we were concerned. And she, you know, she did get defensive. It's very normal for us to get defensive. We don't want to believe that something's wrong with us. But we just had to be very raw with her and tell her how important she was to us and how much we loved her, and that it would really help if we could just go to the doctor, rule out some obvious things. And some of that emotion from her was also fear. You know, my mom had been a widow for almost 30 years. A lot of our seniors have friends that they've seen what some of these dementias look like. They aren't ready to have to depend on other people again or ask for help. And so really, you know, talking to them emotionally about, you know, worst case scenario, something's wrong I'm here for you. We're going to get through this together. And really try to talk to them emotionally about your concerns. And, you know, maybe not use the dementia word, the Alzheimer's word, but some of the other things you've learned can commonly cause some of these signs or symptoms. You know, recognize that it may just not be one conversation and it's over. I talked to them once. They're not going to the doctor. It's done. This may have to be something we talk about every once in a while. We may have to ask other family members to have a conversation with them. And also, you know, something I've heard from some of our family members who recognize these signs, and others, as in the moment when you see the sign, it can potentially be a very frustrating time, you know, and you've just found the keys in the freezer or in the toilet tank or something like that. That might not be the best time to have this conversation, because you as a as a family member or friend could be emotionally charged. This person's probably emotionally charged. And how did they end up there? I wouldn't have put them there. Right? That's an emotional situation. So sometimes saying we're going to talk about this later, I have some concerns, but we're not going to talk about that right now. You know, I'm picking a time when we can sit together, look at each other in the eye. We both had a good meal. Nobody's hungry, no one's time crunched and have that conversation about your concerns and how much this person means to you and why you want to help them. I think that's usually the best path out there. There are some people who, unfortunately won't ever seek a diagnosis. And so you have to also understand, well, we have to keep them safe then. Right. So what are some things we might want to think about to keep them as independent as possible but safe. Because ultimately that's what we're wanting for our loved one is to be safe and healthy. So while you're working through this progress of trying to get to the doctor, trying to get a diagnosis, allow for that independence, but think about safety as well if you have some, some concerns. You know, you might want to be much more involved in this person's life just to kind of be there in case anything happens so that you can set things straight if it is an unsafe situation. And then once we do get a diagnosis and have gone to the doctor, what are some of the next steps for family? You know, let's say they would like to keep mom or dad at home for as long as possible. And also on the other side of that, when do you know, maybe it is time to move them to a community because you can't provide the safety and care at home anymore that they need? Yeah. Well, always we recommend that you have a care plan with one of our care consultants. So you can do that through our 24/7 helpline, which is 800-272-3900. You can also ask at that helpline for someone from your local Alzheimer's Association to call you. Like I said, in the Miami Valley area, we do have local clinical staff that can sit down with you in person or talk to you about local resources, but you want to get a plan together. You know, this is the same person that you were just with a week ago after the diagnosis. So it's not like they've just become incapable of doing anything for themselves. But we do want to take advantage of the fact that now we know that we have a progressive disease. So let's put some plans in place of what, you know, the future, what we need for the future. Let's make some personal decisions of how we want the future to look, and let's live our life. Right. You know, we know couples that they've been planning a 50th wedding anniversary for a long time, and maybe they've gotten this diagnosis at their 48 year anniversary. Well, maybe we're having a 49th year anniversary instead of that big 50 year anniversary, or we're we're taking a trip to see our grandkids out in California now. Why should we wait, you know, longer for something like that? So definitely, you know, you want to seek help from the Alzheimer's Association about care planning to try to be prepared legally, financially, your lifestyle, emotionally. All of those things are really important. When it comes to possibly needing more help outside of your home, you know that a lot of times it does come down to safety as an issue that we're concerned about our loved one being safe in their own home and and that doesn't necessarily mean they have to move out of their home. It may mean that we move into a one story home, or we have more outside help coming into the home. Maybe somebody spending the night now that when we normally didn't have someone overnight. But really, unfortunately, everybody wants that silver bullet answer of as soon as this happens, that's when you've got to move into a memory care community. And again, this disease just doesn't have any black and white answers to it. It's a personal family decision. But in my opinion, you really have to be real on that safety side of things. And if you are concerned about your loved ones safety, that's when you have to think about implementing some new things, whether that's in their home, moving them to your home, moving them to a different home or into a care community. And I know that this whole process and diagnosis can be extremely overwhelming, not just for the person with the disease, but their family members involved as well. So what advice do you have for families in taking care of themselves and kind of handling the steps of this disease? Well, you know, realizing that you're not alone is a huge piece of it. I think a lot of us, this is not a disease that we talk a lot about. And so a lot of our folks are talking now about, let's stop the stigma of this disease and let's talk about it and let's help each other more. Let's tell our stories. Let's go to support groups. Let's get education for this, because it's not something most of us are prepared for. You know, I I've heard a woman who was a nurse and worked in senior living most of her career. She's told me, you know, my mom got Alzheimer's and I thought I knew what I was doing. But once my mom got Alzheimer's and she kicked me out of the house, that's when I realized I didn't know what I was doing. And I was a nurse, and I cared for seniors for most of my career. And so even the best of us are not always prepared for the emotional toll this is going to take on us. And so really reaching out for help, getting that support from family and friends, from therapists, from support groups, taking care of yourself and your loved one, you know, as far as eating nutritious foods, getting out for some exercise or activity, keeping yourself cognitively engaged, as well as, you know, your loved one, that can be very important. We're not just going to go sit in the corner in a dark room and watch television and wait for this disease to come and get us. You know, we're going to stay active and we're going to keep ourselves physically active and mentally and spiritually active as long as we can. That will not only help your loved one who's been diagnosed with dementia, but ultimately it will help you, because we all want to be the best caregivers we can. You have to take care of yourself before you can take care of anybody else, right? It's kind of that oxygen in the airplane rule. When the oxygen masks come down they always tell you you have to put it on yourself before you help somebody else get theirs on. Because if you're in the process of helping somebody and then you go out, you know, you're gone and they're gone, their hope is gone as well. So it's really, really important that you keep some boundaries and you keep some time for yourself and your personal health so that you can be the best caregiver, the best family member for throughout the journey. Well, Dana, it was such a pleasure having you with us today. You shared some incredibly helpful information, as well as tips for family members who have loved ones with Alzheimer's. For everybody listening, be sure to tune in to our next podcast in two weeks. Scott Griswold, a community educator with the Alzheimer's Association, will be joining us to discuss brain health, health. So we're going to continue this conversation. As always, be sure to like and subscribe to Senior Living today so you never miss a new episode. And we will be back again in two weeks.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Alexandria Rohrbaugh

Host
Head Shot

Dayna Ritchey, MBA, CDP

Guest