Caregivers - Sunshine in an Otherwise Overcast Existence

By Joseph Tuesday, April 06, 2010

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This is my 20th and possibly final SharePost. There apparently isn't much of a male presence here that can benefit from my experience. I had hoped that there might be others to share with, who like myself, were seeking the male perspective on dealing with the illness of dementia in a loved one. Men apparently internalize these issues and work them out in their own silent ways. I have enjoyed my regular contacts on this site and I want you all to know that I have appreciated each of you for so many reasons. Thank you for being so kind and always being so helpful! You're the best! Big hugs to all of you! Leah, you are an inspiration to all of us! Hang in there and keep sharing!

I want to share some observations about caregivers in this post. It has been a year since my mother moved in to an assisted living community in Washington State. In that year, she had to move from an independent living apartment into a purely assisted living one for her own safety after just 60 days. During that year of daily observation, I have seen many different caregivers and I have witnessed several different personalities and styles. Some are noteworthy and some are not. This is true regardless of gender, race, or nationality. Many commercial caregivers are immigrants. For some of them, the job has been quite challenging.

The many caregivers who have been tasked with caring for my mom, have more often than not, been exceptional people. They always greet mom with a smile and some positive comment. They respect her even though they realize that mom cannot always make good choices for herself. They try to be helpful without making her feel helpless. They address her by name when they say hello to her, even though mom can't remember their names. They work to overcome any initial prejudice that mom may have about them, whether it's looks, race, gender, religion, or something that can't be easily explained. In a few days of kindness and caring, they win her over. Mom is sad at the end of the month when the caregivers get rotated and she loses "her girl."

These professionals are great mentors for those who need to learn how to handle relationships with loved ones affected by dementia. They can often give suggestions on how to deal with awkward circumstances. They know what works and what doesn't with a particular individual. Behind the scenes, they deal with some nasty issues. Things like fecal or urinary incontinence (as well as some others) can make a really big mess to clean up. These caregivers simply put on their nitrile gloves and deal with it. It's no fun, but it needs doing and these individuals get it done without shaming or blaming anyone.

The best caregivers are always friendly with the residents and their visitors. They are always in an upbeat or friendly mood. They rarely say anything that would make the resident feel uncomfortable or give a visitor reason to be concerned. They instill a sense of confidence in everything they do. They cast their employer in a very positive light. They are professional in every way and make you feel at ease. They are sincere. You can trust them.

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Comments (20) | Add comment

Christine Kennard, Health Guide

4/ 6/10 1:42pm

Joseph

I am so sorry to hear that you are thinking of not doing any more posts or sharing your experiences with the OurAlzheimer's community.

It must be disappointing not to hear from other men who do visit the site, but I am sure they do read your answers and shareposts.

Don't go Joseph! :)

Christine

Joseph

4/ 9/10 5:17am

Thank you for the encouragement. It appears that I may soon be engaging the services of Hospice for my mom. I'll visit this site and keep track of everyone. I'll write a comment or something occasionally to show that I'm still around! I appreciate your support! -- Joe --

Christine Kennard, Health Guide

4/ 9/10 6:32am

Sounds like you are having a difficult time at the moment. All my best wishes to you and your family. Please do keep in touch with us all.

Christine

4/ 9/10 11:58am

Joe,

I am sorry about hospice for your Mom... I hope she will recover.

My FIL also has a problem now - he is on the catheter for his prostate problem and he is also psychotic. He has chronic heart failure and is in stage 6. I suspect he will be incontinent soon. I am not sure how he will pull through this either.

Hope things will work out better for you.

Take care,

Nina

4/ 9/10 11:58am

Joe,

I am sorry about hospice for your Mom... I hope she will recover.

Hope things will work out better for you.

Take care,

Nina

kutieq

4/10/10 8:16pm

Hello Joseph,

Greetings, I read your story and it was very touching. I hope and pray that all things will work out with you and your mom. How, I came to find you. My fiance, his mom, also has the disease. He always told me of the things he has to go through with her. However, it so happen early this morning, I heard them in the background, as he forget to mute his microphone via our chat on messenger. I was really frightened and scared..I do now realize, the circumstances he is going through with his mom. Therfore, I went google do see what is the difference between alzheimer and dementia.

I just read your story to him. I told him, he has to find ways too just as what you did in knowing how others deal with this situation or those who have the experience to deal with this matter. However, I really need to make contact with you as I would like for you to speak to him..or further need of communication. Please, I really need your kindness of assistant immediately as you see this post. All what you shared regards to your situations is very similar.

Male needs to express and be open up to what is happening with their families and love ones who goes through dementia..Do not be afraid..we are all human..doesn't matter, who or what or where you are from. We need to help each other, just as God help those in their sickness in love..we need to be more passionate with our older ones and show how much we care for them despite the fact of our patterns of life to them. Compassion and Love and unity is all we should share..

Please contact me below at kutieq_2002@yahoo.com, aka kutieq

or for anyone who wishes to help us, we would deeply appreciate with much help as we do not have the experience in handling situations as this..

Joseph, let me encourage you to stay online here, there is a purpose why you are here why you have just only receive a few respond..continue in sharing there one day you will be seeing more persons coming forward to share what they have and males also.

Thank you..and God bless

Joseph

4/11/10 7:04am

Kutieq, Please feel free to send me a message using the site's message feature. Please scroll your cursor over the lightbulb "Ideas" icon at the beginning of my article to open a small window that will reveal the "Send Message" feature. Thank you for the kind encouraging words! I appreciate your feedback. -- Joe --

4/ 6/10 2:19pm

Hi Joe,

Will you at least stay and read the posts and answer the questions sometimes?

I understand lately the men don't appear a lot here but there are some male members. Bob has his own reading site and Bill has not posted quite a while.

Sometimes I don't write sharepost anymore but I still answer questions or write some comments here and there provided that the website works.

I felt I have benefited from your posts/comments/answers. Please stay on so you can help many people here.

Take care,

Nina

Joseph

4/ 9/10 5:23am

Thank you for your encouragement, as well. I appreciate the suggestion in your private message, too! I will drop in from time to time, so... I'm not gone... I'm just going to be a less frequent visitor. -- Joe --

Carol Bradley Bursack, Health Guide

4/10/10 8:27am

Hi Joe,

I, too, will be sorry for you to be less involved. You are very valuable to this community. Finding men to be involved in support groups is an ongoing problem. We will look forward to anything you have to offer.

We are thinking of you and your mom, and are with you in spirit.

Carol

Joseph

4/11/10 6:49am

Thank you, Carol. I very much appreciated your personal Email, as well. I will continue to participate at this site, although I will be a bit distracted for a while. I'll stay and see how things go! -- Joe --

kutieq

4/11/10 3:44pm

Thanks for your respond, I hope I do follow what you are saying as it took me a while to find you back her after signing up..I am not familiar with this site..heh..

My fiance is living in the UK. Many times he is not able to sleep as he is drastically being disturbed or desrupted by his Mom. She will be so persistent to say she hears somebody outside very late at nights and asking for the keys to open up the door. Also, She will hit him if he doesn't approved of her. There are so many things he said, I just wanted to know what solution could we find in all this. But he is calm with her, but very stressed out on all this. Please with your help could you tell us what to do where as the medication she is taking is of no help but gets her worst. I am still doing some more research in this area of Dementia sickness as it holds my interest to help some one. I am living in Jamaica.

Thank you

Carol Bradley Bursack, Health Guide

4/12/10 8:59am

Many times the medication is wrong and makes a person worse. Medication is very tricky with dementia. Please have her see the doctor and ask to have this medication withdrawn and try something else. Sometimes, it takes many tries to find a combination that works - and then that can change. It's a constant battle to find the right ones, but there may be something that helps if the doctor is patient.

Carol

4/12/10 11:28am

Your fiance should consider a nursing home or assisted living home for his Mom given her violence. If she hit him a lot, it is not right. He should not take it like that. He needs help for caregiving. At this point, hiring a professional caregiver or send her to the home for dementia will help a lot.

Did she get the diagnosis Alzheimers at all? She should be diagnosed first and be given medications for dementia.

You are from Jamaica? My FIL's caregivers are all from Jamaica. They are nice people in one big family in North of Chicago in the states.

Hope your fiance will find a good solution soon for his Mom. You need to tell him he should not do it alone. I know she must trust him only but it does not mean professional caregivers or nursing home cannot help her.

You cannot force him to seek for support group. My husband is also quiet and likes to keep it inside of him but we have professional caregivers so they have helped a lot. I get the support for him. I cannot make him talk about this with any support group and he does not even read Alzheimer's books. I read them.

Take care,

Nina

kutieq

4/12/10 11:51pm

Hello Carol, thank you for your advice. My fiance has actually done that with her changing her medications..however, am actually thinking of some thing more natural for her than just living on medications. I really dislike the lots of medications whereby one has to generally feeds on which after a time your body gets immune to it and has no more effect.

I am sure there must be other ways that one can prove without medications for dementia or any other illnesses that leads to this.

Couldn't there possible be an operations, even though my fiance said they cannot do any operations due to the slight damage of her brain..there must can be something to correct the problem..

I am still searching for possible answers to all this sickness..

Bless you..

kutieq

4/13/10 12:14am

Hi Nina,

Thanks for your letter. Yes, I do understand all what you are saying he has done all this in which he has known she has dementia. He also thought of placing her in an instituition. But then, I really do not think it is a good idea, am not saying I disagree what you are saying as it also can be of an advantage as much as a disadvantage.

I really love my finace, and willing to go the extra mile to help. I know it is very stressing and painful to see him going through all this by himself, when am all alone here and not able to help much at this point. That is why am seeking so much help in searching also for answers.

Oh really, Jamaican's seem to be spreading all over the globe..heh..have you ever been to Jamaica?

Am sorry, am not sure what is FIL's? How does one become a Caregiver? What are the options and what are the possibilities.

...until then Nina.

God Bless

Kutieq

4/13/10 1:18am

My father-in-law= FIL.

Just take 10 courses in junior college in the states and the caregivers get certificates.

Nina

Joseph

4/13/10 1:32am

Hello Kutieq, Carol and Nina have provided some great suggestions to you. I'm sorry that I've been very busy recently and haven't been able to give you much personal attention. I did check for a message from you and wondered if something had gone wrong since there were no new messages. It's great that you have established some dialogue with the people on this site. There is a lot of experience here and I think that most of your questions will be answered. Medications are often trial and error until something achieves the desirable results. If the current drug isn't working very well, there are others to try that might do the trick, at least for a while. Until behavioral issues can be controlled, placement in a senior living community may be difficult. If you have a good doctor working on this, a short term solution may not be far off. Good luck with this! Best Wishes, -- Joe --

Carol Bradley Bursack, Health Guide

4/13/10 6:43am

Actually, an operation could be very risky for many reasons. My dad had surgery to drain fluid off his brain. The fluid was building up behind scar tissue left by a WWII injury. The anesthetic threw him into a hellish dementia and he lived that way for ten years.

Yes, medications can be a problem, but there aren't any operations that can help dementia (that I know of), unless it is something like draining fluid. That is usually successful, but in older people anesthetic of any type is risky.

Antioxidants, fish oil and other natural approaches help some people, but as the disease advances, they can only do so much. You are right that too many medications or the wrong ones can cause harm. And they do only work so long. Still, many find them useful for a time.

Good luck with this. It's all very difficult.

Carol

4/13/10 11:50am

You need to read some books on dementia or ALzheimer's. Please check out those books so you understand more about dementia.

These elders cannot have operations because they will put out all the IVs and tubungs. My father-in-law pulled out his urinal catheter last Friday just because he didn't like the hard catheter and hurt himself.

The elders don't have normal brain to process the info. outside and they are in their own world.

It is nice not to send them to a nursing home, but home care does not mean she can beat up her son. Medications will help her more but lots of redirection and distractions are needed to calm her down. I don't think your fiance can do it alone.
Try to hire some professional caregivers to help out. Get home care service so he will learn from the professionals.

The other thing is home care 24 hours is expensive - we do not live with my father in law so we have to send him to the new home this summer to save expenses and change the way it operates because now he is very combative and the home care has done the best so far.

Take care,

Nina

Caregivers - Sunshine in an Otherwise Overcast Existence

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