When I had my training as an Alzheimer’s caregiver I was told that I would never win an argument with someone with dementia. If they don’t remember something then it never happened, if they know they still live in the apartment they had before they bought the house in 1949 well, then they still live there. (This was what my mother-in-law thought although she knew my husband was her son and who I was she had no recolection of the house she had lived in for 50 years).
I was told that I had to live their reality as much as safety would allow and the following story from one caregiver illistrates this beautifully.
A Caregiver’s Personal Story: Getting Into a Dementia Patient’s Head
“He couldn’t remember where he lived..” the policeman started with.
He had only been a block away and was found before he was even missed but wandering can be a big problem with people with Alzheimer’s and dementia. It became such a problem in Virginia that the police are now taking classes on how to find these wanderers. To learn more about it read the following article:
Both rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis share some similarities. For example, they both cause joint pain, joint discomfort, and joint inflammation. It is also common for these diseases to have a very impact on the life of the infected, making a number of everyday tasks much more difficult and even painful. While these kinds of arthritis are similar in many ways, they do affect the body differently.
Perhaps the biggest difference between these two diseases is that rheumatoid arthritis is a symmetrical arthritis and osteoarthritis is an asymmetrical arthritis. The difference is in the way the joints are affected. In an asymmetrical arthritis, only one joint will usually be affected out of each pair. For example, in someone with osteoarthritis, if the right hip were to be infected, the left hip would not usually be affected. This differs from a symmetrical arthritis, like rheumatoid, where both hips would typically be infected.
Another difference is in the duration of morning pain and bouts of arthritis pain in general. Both of these diseases often cause the senior to experience morning pain, which is typically the result of long periods of inactivity. As a result, it is also often common for the senior to have periods of pain after having been seated for more than a few minutes. However, in rheumatoid arthritis, the joint pain will usually last much longer than that of osteoarthritis, sometimes well over an hour.
Currently, there is not a cure for arthritis, although there have been a number of studies showing how exercise and proper diet play a large role in preventing it. In either case, however, once the arthritis has developed, its effects can not be reversed, only prevented from continuing to spread. As a result, it becomes necessary for the person with the rheumatic disease to develop ways of making life easier and completing their daily tasks without experiencing pain. This is often dubbed as learning to live with arthritis, which involves first identifying problem activities and then brainstorming ways of making these activities easier.
Often, living with arthritis involves using helper tools to make life easier. For example, many people with hand arthritis have a very difficult time working in the kitchen. It can be very hard to grasp items and support the weight of large pots. One way this is addressed is by investing in utensils with larger handles, making them easier to hold onto. There are also a number of tools, such as jar openers, which are designed to use mechanical principals to reduce the amount of work for the senior.
Samuel is a writer with a knowledge of many conditions and diseases that affect the elderly. Learning how to make life easier and living with arthritis in general is an essential step for people of all ages who are affected by arthritis. It is important to maintain a normal and healthy lifestyle, without being affected by the disease. Often, devices like lift chairs are used to help make daily tasks easier and are often called helper tools. Lift chairs are an important type of helper tool, which looks like a recliner, but is designed to help make standing easier and safer.
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