tional demand.

_ Preparing for “new people

- Terrace will soon ‘become home for several residents of. Woodlands, a lower mainland institution that is in the process . of being closed. On Jan. 13 the Terrace and District Com- —

- munity Services Society received additional funding. from the - . Ministry of Social Services and Housing for expansion of its services to accommodate the new people.

‘Woodlands held a population of several hundred mentally handicapped individuals, but under a trend toward closing massive institutions they are gradually being placed in more humanitarian settings like small group homes..Community. . services board member Ed De Walle and administrator Detlef _ Beck, received the additional funding amounting to a total of $26,564 through Skeena MLA Dave Parker. Beck said the money will be used to renovate and enlarge two of the Terrace group homes and purchase another mehicle to meet the addi-

January. is Alzheimer’s month throughout Canada. Many people in Terrace have fallen victim to this disease, and their families have been thrown into turmoil in the effort to care for a parent or spouse whose mental abilities seem to deteriorate daily before their eyes. Ter- race Review reporter Tod Strachan interviewed a local resident who has had this devastating experience.

Alzheimer’s. Rarely thought

of, but far from rare. Today, -

there are over 300,000 Cana- dians afflicted with this disease and this number is expected to grow as the ‘‘baby boom’’ popu- lation ages. The odds of being touched by this: disease, either directly or indirectly, have become increasingly high,

by Tod Strachan

But what do we know about Alzheimer’s? You may have heard somewhere that the earliest signs are memory loss and confusion. You may even know that as the disease pro- gresses there are personality, mood and behavioral changes, and eventually the patient re- quires 24-hour care.

What does all this really mean to the patient and caregiver? As one person put it, “It’s a heart- breaking experience to watch a responsible, intelligent person deteriorate. It just tears you apart. You are in fact, watching somebody die slowly right before your eyes... somebody you love.”’ Even this, though, is only a part of what the primary caregiver feels,

There is also frustration, guilt, uncertainty and the upheaval of the household and daily routines. There may even be the heartache of being emo- tionally split between a parent who needs care and a family who demands attention. The family may not easily accept the disarrangement of their personal lives.

A Terrace resident who has once confronted the complex- ities and heartache of caring for an Alzheimer’s sufferer recently related the story to the Terrace

Review in the hope of promoting:

a greater awareness and. under- standing for both caregivers and suffers of Alzheimer disease. For the purpose of this story, we'll call our friend Bill. -

- things,’’: Bill recalls,

Bill's parents lived. in Mon- treal and when his father died suddenly a few years ago it was an unbearable loss for his mother. Alone, she became severely depressed and blamed

-herself for not being able to

“snap out of it’. |

“She felt like she should be pulling herself together,’’ -ex- plains Bill. ‘‘She felt like she was doing something wrong... like she was at fault.”

At times she was disoriented and at other times she was perfectly normal... but Montreal doctors registered no great con- cern. ‘* ‘Don’t worry’, we were told,’? remembers Bill. ‘‘Your mother. doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. She’s just de- pressed and if she’s with family she’l! be okay.”? And so, with this advice, Bill’s mother left her Montreal home of 37 years and moved to Terrace to live with

her son and his family. But her |

apparent state of depression fail- ed to subside. ‘“‘She was quite aware she was forgetting “and at times she would say things like, ‘Something’s wrong with my brain’.’” .

The move to Terrace was only the first ofa number of difficult periods ahead. It was at this time

‘that Bill had to make his first

decision on behalf of his mother. He had to sell her house. There was no other choice. ‘‘We sold the whole thing off,’’ he says. '‘We saved some furniture so she could have an apartment of her own, but

. she was never able to, and it’s still in storage. Then she lost.

contact with -her friends. She was cut off and | used to. feel

-guilty about cutting her off, but didn’t see what else | could have

done.”

But life went on. There’s nothing unusual about an elder- ly parent moving in with the family of one of her children. After a short; period of adjust-

ota

fatal...

ment things seemed. to fall into

place and the daily routine,

although slightly.altered; moved ahead much as it did before. There’s also nothing unusual in

‘the stereotype of an elderly

parent not being ‘‘quite with it’’.

Most people understand this and .

treat elderly people who seem mentally adrift at. times with kindness and compassion.

For Bill, though, this return to normality never occurred. His family felt the normal strain of change in the beginning but rather than improve, it worsen- ed. His mother became very dependent and ‘“‘totally self- centered”. Bill understands the reasons now, ‘but at the time it was often a source of conflict.

slowly. And while they’re dying, their mental awareness becomes progressively worse.

'. When the diagnosis is Alz- heimer’s, the reality is that you have become the permanent caregiver for someone who often won't even know who you are. ““You don’t want your mother

to die but you can’t see the end ‘either and you’ve got to live

your own life,’’ explains Bill. “Tt’s like having a child but a child improves every day... they learn something. heimer patient gets worse every day so you don’t have anything to look forward to... just the deterioration. For a long time | thought it would be better if she

_ died.”’ These feelings are normal

But an Ailz-.

‘¢,,. and sometimes she would say things like, ‘Something’s wrong with my brain’.”’

“A lot of the time I didn’t feel

‘all that sympathetic because |

didn’t know what it was,’’ Bill reflects. ‘‘I thought she was de- pressed and should snap out of it. I would say things to her like, ‘Why don’t you stop talking about it and do it’.””

But a-short time later his mother was diagnosed as an Alz- heimer sufferer, and these words become another source of guilt.

-Bill’s mother was struggling to

hold onto her world. She felt like she was losing touch with reality and she couldn’t do anything about it. And her first

. concern ws. naturally for herself,.

not for others. But at the time, Bill didn’t understand. ‘‘You feel suspicious,’’ he explains. “You feel like this person is becoming emotionally depen- dent on you. Like they're freeloading and they don’t have to snap out of it because they have a comfortable place to live. Then you understand and there’s a lot of guilt.”

in many situations, diagnosis is a turning point. As devas- tating as the prognosis may be, the family. now, knows what they’re dealing with and what to expect. In time, they. can begin searching for ways to cope. But:

this isn’t the case when the diag- .

nosis. is-Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer disease is untreatable and but its victims usually die.

but they’re also another source of guilt.

As the permanent caregiver you lose a great deal of your private and work time. Bill’s family hired a ‘‘companion”’ for his mother, but that only took care of week days. In the eve- ning and on weekends, someone always had to be at home with his mother. An Alzheimer suf- ferer, while they have moments of great.clarity, may at other times turn on the stove ‘and forget they’ve done so, begin running a bath and forget. They may even wander off and become lost. Also, Alzheimer patients often pace all -night. Unlike the caregiver, they need very little sleep.

“‘There’s good days and

there’s bad days. They look the

same, but it’s sort of like having a stranger in the house,”’ says Bill. ‘“They don’t remember the past. Their personality begins to change. They often become suspicious of everyone.”’ Bill remembers his mother wrapping items of value to her in plastic bread bags, hiding them, and then, when she couldn’t re- member where they were, accus- ing others of stealing them.

. Coping was a strain but Bill’s family helped. Even the children pitched in and often accepted the role of caregiver. Eventually,

though, coping with Alzheimer's

Coping ‘with the inevitable

+

became too much and a decision . had to be made to move Bill’s mother to a home for the elder- ly, And with this decision, even

‘though it was the best thing for

his mother and his family, there was more guilt,

‘*] didn’t want to put her in,” explains Bill. ‘‘l was afraid she | would deteriorate more rapidly away from the family,’’ And his mother didn’t want to move. “She thought of it as an old age home and she didn’t ‘think she was ready for an old age home.” Moments of clarity like this, ex- plains Bill, is one of the most difficult things in dealing: with the disease. ‘‘Sometimes they’re so right on,”’ he says. A while later, Bill’s mother died. °

Bill’s story may be depressing. As told here, his story may even seem to some to hold disrespect for the elderly... particularly those suffering from Alzheimer’s. But it’s an honest story of a real life situation. Many people have been, and in the future many more will be, in the same situation and they will - have to learn to cope. The real point of Bill’s story, though, is that it doesn’t have to be as dif- ficult as portrayed here. There’s an Alzheimer’s support group to help, and there’s much that the community can do to help as well, :

Terrace children’s “Hibrarian Gillian Campbell.is one of the members of the local Alzheimer support group and she explains that awareness and understan-

_ ding for both the caregiver and

the sufferer of the disease is

what’s really needed. Family,

friends, employers — - even

strangers — have to understand

the disease and the problems it

causes the caregiver and the pa-- tient’ And with this under- standing, they need to offer help in any way they can.

A part of this understanding is to realize that the sufferer may not necessarily be elderly. He or she may only be in their late 40s or early 50s. Also, the caregiver may seem a little tired or testy at times. But associates have to remember that they’re working a 24-hour-a-day job on top of their regular work or daily. ac- tivities,

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