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Remember 'the long goodbye' |
| BL » News » Remember 'the long goodbye' |
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September 17, 2004 |
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By Tom Carey
Tribune community news editor
Her mother might ask the same question over and over. Greentown’s Sue Ann Harper recalls her parent, Alice Sheridan, now 89, also would regularly misplace items such as her purse.
When you’re around someone with Alzheimer’s disease, Harper said, “sometimes you don’t see the forest for the trees.” Today, Harper’s delighted with the care her mother receives at a local convalescent center’s Alzheimer’s unit. She said she will be joining others during an upcoming walk at Highland Park to raise funds to battle a disease labeled as “the long goodbye.”
According to information from the National Institute on Aging, Alzheimer’s disease is a form of dementia, affecting parts of the brain controlling thought, memory and language.
Social worker Karen Jarrett is the director of the Alzheimer’s Care Unit at Kokomo’s Sycamore Village. She said there are about 4.5 million Alzheimer’s patients in the United States—100,000 in Indiana alone. As the population grows, Jarrett said that national number is expected to climb to 8–10 million; in 2050, to about 16–20 million.
Alzheimer’s affects the patient’s ability to function. But Jarrett also noted it’s a family disease, impacting its victim’s families. “The last thing I ever wanted to do was put her in a nursing home,” an Alzheimer’s patient’s husband recently told Jarrett.
But the social worker said folks in such situations shouldn’t feel guilty about seeking help in caring for those stricken by the disease. Such caregivers can tend to neglect their own care, she continued, and sometimes pass on before the Alzheimer’s victims themselves. And she said one of the reasons for this is a spouse may feel they’re burdening, say, a child by asking for assistance with caregiving. And as a wife may cover for her spouse’s dementia, Jarrett said the severity of the problem may not be realized until the woman’s deceased.
Sycamore Village has care specifically geared toward Alzheimer’s patients. And Harper said she’s extremely grateful for that care. Some patients may make brownies for others; at other times, Jarrett said, the patients may busy themselves scrapbooking.
The Alzheimer’s Association notes caregivers may experience different feelings at different stages of the disease. The feelings are normal. Still, caregivers may want to seek professional counseling, attend a support group, or talk with a religious leader.
The Greentown woman said she and siblings—while caring for her mother—didn’t immediately recognize her sometimes erratic behavior as Alzheimer’s until a doctor’s diagnosis.
The family eventually located their mother in the west side Kokomo facility, Harper said. That unit is secured, the daughter continued, so her mother can’t wander. Harper said she loves the care her mother receives there. “It’s a homey atmosphere,” she said, where some patients have parts in preparing meals or setting the table.
“It makes them feel needed; they raised families and they still want to feel productive,” Harper said. She also said her mother relishes a regular ice cream cone or milkshake. And she gushed about a recent facility dinner, where family members dropped in and dined on fried chicken and all the fixings with their relatives.
The daughter did lament it seems sometimes as though you lose an Alzheimer’s victim twice; first, to the disease. “That’s the person who raised you, who helped you when you had trials and tribulations,” Harper said. And then, she continued, you lose them again “when the Lord takes them home.”
Harper will be out of Sycamore Village at the park later this month as “it’s a wonderful opportunity to walk alongside those who go every day to a nursing home, who want to see Alzheimer’s cured.”
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