Coping with Dementia: Hannah's Journey

Our mother was 89 years old in November of 2007, when she lived in a retirement apartment complex and fell in the hallway and broke her hip. She had been living in this newly built, apartment building for about five years and doing quite well. She made many friends and lived very close to most of her family. All of us felt good about her living there because it was new, safe and such a nice location. We noticed that during 2007, she would occasionally forget certain words when she spoke. She would keep saying, "ah....what shall I say....", while she was searching for simple words or phrases. We just though of it as normal aging. She was active and in excellent health and had regular checkups at the doctor, so we didn't think too much of it.

After she fell and broke her hip, it seemed as if the anesthetic from surgery flipped some sort of switch in her brain. At first, we just thought it was the drugs for pain, and the doctor soon stopped them as she was feeling better. She was talking as if she was completely out of her mind right after surgery, but after the drugs were stopped, she seemed better, but still not quite herself. To make a very long story short, it was the beginning of a downhill road of her mental capacity for the next two years.

The family just didn't know where to turn or how to deal with this change, and I began my searching on the Internet for answers. There has been a great deal of knowledge shared and publicized over these last two years and we have all learned a great deal, but the fact is that when this all started, we were lost for direction. I have since made it my mission to write about elder care issues, to share information and try to raise public awareness that families need to begin conversations with their senior members while they are still in good health and mental understanding. There is a lot of help and information available, but families need to first, be able to find it, and then, talk about it sooner rather than later. Once a senior has some type of crisis, there will be confusion, and families will find themselves lost, confused and wondering what to do.

I have written articles about my mother's journey over these last couple of years on my blog, Baby Boomer Davy's Locker, called Hannah's Journey. My mother is now living in a public nursing home, which is about as good as these types of homes typically can be. She is still fairly healthy physically, but her mind is slipping away more and more. She still recognizes most of her family, but doesn't necessarily remember their names. Each visit is more difficult as we see her getting progressively worse and more bitter about life and people.

Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease are basically "a long and lingering death". We all feel as if our mother has died, but we know that she actually hasn't. It is a terrible disease and there needs to be much more research for treatment and cures. Public awareness is increasing but this is a disease that most people do not think about until they become personally affected in some way.

One factor that is causing more public awareness is that as Baby Boomers are approaching senior years, they are becoming very aware of Dementia from aging parents or just because Boomers are concerned and wondering about their own aging.

Here are some alarming facts about Alzheimer's Disease:

* As many as 5.3 million people in the United States are living with Alzheimer's.

* Alzheimer's and dementia triple health care costs for Americans 65 and older.

* Every 70 seconds, someone develops Alzheimer's.

* Alzheimer's costs more than $148 billion each year to Medicare, Medicaid and businesses.

source: http://www.actionalz.org/about_wad.asp