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Alzheimer's may strike you or your family member any time and will definitely wreak havoc in your life. Here are a few FAQs to help you deal with
Alzheimer’s may strike you or your family member any time and will definitely wreak havoc in your life. Here are a few FAQs to help you deal with a family member with Alzheimer’s.
Alzheimer’s is a kind of dementia that causes memory loss and an inability to perform daily life activities. The symptoms occur slowly in a person and worsen over time.
To get an Alzheimer’s diagnosis within the family can be an overwhelming thing. Plus to see the disease slowly progress and deteriorate a family member or friend can be difficult.
However, it is very important to remember certain points while communicating with an Alzheimer’s patient. The following FAQs and their answers from the experts will give you a better picture as to how to go about it:
Q. When an Alzheimer’s patient is wrong, do you correct them or do you continue to live in their reality?
A. Let’s take an example. Say your grandfather does not know how to cook, but he says that he can’t remember where he has kept his personally written cookbook. What do you do then?
What do experts say?
Don’t correct them. Go with their version of reality, that gives them comfort and happiness. Correcting them and trying to introduce them to the truth might leave them feeling embarrassed and irritated.
Q. What to do in a situation where an Alzheimer’s patient cannot remember someone very close to him or her? Like a family member?
A. As this disease slowly removes the memories from the patient’s brain, there might be a stage when the person might also forget you. What to do then?
What do the experts say?
The first thing is to re-introduce yourself. That might help them remember you.
However, there is a chance they might not remember you at all. Do not feel disheartened. Just be patient.
Q. Is it alright to speak about the Alzheimer’s patient to someone, while the patient himself or herself is right in that room with you as well as other?
A. One should always treat each and everyone with some mental illness with utter dignity and respect.
It is highly discouraged to do so. Avoid talking down to them or as if he or she isn’t present there in the room. Never ever do it and try every possible way to avoid such discussions in front of them.
In conclusion, visiting can be a frustrating affair for both the patient as well as you. You should never stop visiting your loved ones.
Communication with a person with Alzheimer’s needs a lot of patience, good listening skills and the utmost level of understanding.
The above question-answers can help you and the patient with Alzheimer’s to understand each other better.
Picture credits: Unsplash
PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELLOR FOR THE PAST 5 YEARS. MA PSYCHOLOGY, Diploma in Community Mental Health, NIMHANS Former Forensic Psychologist Intern. Former content writer. Double Masters in Computer Applications & in Psychology. B.A in Hindustani Classical Music. read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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