Greetings: I am passing along a link that I personally feel every dental practitioner should watch. This
HBO documentary shows you aspects and real life situations of Alzheimer's
patients in the various stages of the disease.
Geriatrics is an obvious
topic that medical and dental students cover but very little is taught or
known about Alzheimer's
from the reality standpoint. One of my co-workers
who is my age, is married to a woman who is 8 years his senior.
She is 59
and has Alzheimer's. She is (was) a highly educated RN who was on our
disaster team. A
couple of years ago she and several members of our
disaster team traveled to Nashville to a symposium. On the day
we were to
leave she got disoriented, lost and confused. She was frustrated and
embarrassed. I mentioned
this to her husband who was not in the immediate
vicinity. A couple of months later tests were done and the tentative
diagnosis was early Alzheimer's. Even with good medical care and medications
I have seen this beautiful person
slide mentally over 3 years. Her husband
said to me this week... "Jim you can't imagine what it is like.
Let me give
you an analogy. You are married and have two fine daughters you have
'raised up'.
Your wife is a successful hygienist and you are a successful
EMS Manager. The two of you will grow old together
barring any unforeseen
problems. My wife and I have no children. However, I am going to go
backwards and 'raise
down' my wife to a childlike state in my old age!"
What a sad scenario. But Jim has gone back to
special courses for nurses
and now he is trained to teach others about Alzheimers and more importantly
he is a RN
too and is readying himself to take care of his wife medically!
Jim works for me and he is also my friend and I am going
to support him as
best I can and spread the word about Alzheimer's Disease to those that will
listen.
The following is free and there are more resources at the HBO site.
http://www.hbo.com/alzheimers/memory-loss-tapes.html Article submitted by Jim Eads
