Pattern for Someone with Alzheimers

The following blog post really builds off of thr last article we posted, which discussed trying new approaches with the ones we love who suffer from Alzheimer's. In the article that follows, the author discusses replacing bad patterns with good ones, an idea that we have discussed at length during some of the dementia conferences we've attended. Let's be creative and try to implement some of these ideas. They might not all "stick," but you'll never know if you don't try. 

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Did you ever think to yourself, I wonder if I could replace the "bad" patterns of behavior that are driving me crazy with "new' positive patterns of behavior? I did.

By +Bob DeMarco
+Alzheimer's Reading Room 

Alzheimer's Disease Changing Patterns of Behavior

Did you ever think to yourself, I wonder if I could replace the "bad" patterns of behavior that are driving me crazy with "new' positive patterns of behavior? I did.

I wonder if Alzheimer's caregivers think about patterns of behavior when it comes to caring for someone living with Alzheimer's disease.

Many persons living with dementia evidence patterns of behavior that drive Alzheimer's caregivers "nuts" or worse. 

Did you ever think to yourself, I wonder if I could replace the "bad" patterns with "new and good" patterns of behavior? 

I did.

Patterns.

All Alzheimer's patients evidence patterns of behavior.

Some of the patterns are simple -- like asking over and over what day it is. Others are more complex. One reader told us her husband was shaving four times a day and his face was getting "raw". Others pace. The list goes on and on.

My mother was evidencing all kinds of patterns of behavior -- doing the same crazy things at the same time of day or night -- over and over.

At approximately 9:37 PM, at night,  my mother would get up and announce that she needed to start cleaning the house. I am talking every night.

Imagine trying to explain to someone living with Alzheimer's disease that it is night time and you don't clean at bed time.

I'm not sure how many times I did this, more then I want to remember -- it didn't work.

My mother would wake up at approximately 1:29 AM, get out of bed, open up our front door, take a few steps and look around. After a few minutes she would come back in and get in bed.

Same thing at 4:29 AM. Each and every time, I would get up out of bed, stand back, and watch her do it. I did not intervene. After a year or so I finally started to understand why she was doing this.
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After a year or so of reading research about Alzheimer's disease and dementia, I came to a conclusion -- exercise was the single most important variable in caring for someone with Alzheimer's disease. I enrolled my mother in a gym for the first time when she was 87 years old. At first I put her in the class for seniors -- the Silver Sneakers class. It helped. 

One day when she came out of the class I decided to put her on the treadmill. She resisted, but she did it. 

Then something started happening that changed our lives. 

My mother would start walking on the treadmill and at the 6 minute and 30 second mark she would bend over like she was going to fall. She would grab the side rail on the treadmill and more or less hang over it. Her feet, however, would keep moving. At the seven minute mark she would stand back up, straight, and start walking. This happened every time. It amazed me.
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Patterns of behavior. I came to a conclusion through these observations.

First, most Alzheimer's patients have patterns of behavior -- some good, some bad. Second, most people without Alzheimer's have patterns of behavior -- they do the same kinds of things around the same time of day, over and over.

Patterns of behavior bring homeostasis into our lives. 

Having well defined patterns of behavior brings comfort, organization, and a sense of stability into our lives. The fact that we live a life of patterns also helps explain why most of us don't like change. And, why we resist change.

I thought to myself, what if I could change my mother's bad patterns of behavior and channel her energy into more positive patterns. 

I decided to introduce an entirely new set of behaviors and actions into our lives.

Over time I introduced one new behavior after another until we reached the point where our day was organized in a way that made each day very similar to the one that came before it.

Our day had a very well defined pattern and so did our daily actions and activities. A Pattern.
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Here is a simple example of how it worked.

Instead of waiting for my mother to ask me. "what day is it". Meaning what day of the week. I put the newspaper in front of her each morning and asked her, "what day it is it". Then, what is today's date? She would read this to me from the top of the newspaper.

I also bought a great big clock and put it on the wall right in front of her seat where she couldn't miss it. I also asked what time it is? I did this two or three times a day. It helped cured a couple of her repetitive behaviors.

Over the years I cured my mother of meanness, getting up in the middle of the night, urinary incontinence, and the dreaded bowel movement problem. I did this by introducing new patterns of behavior and news tools into our daily equation. 

Did it work perfectly -- no. But it worked.
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You Are Not Alone - An Alzheimer's Function

If you are in the neighborhood on Monday, November 4, head over to the Pierce County Library to learn more about dementia and Alzheimer's Disease with Lon Cole, a published poet currently living with Alzheimer's.

The event is free to the public. More information is available on the flyer below:

For more information, visit the Facebook event page here: You Are Not Alone

Saving the Libraries Lost to Alzheimer's Disease

The following is a wonderful article, by Ellen Potts, about the power of sharing stories in relation to those suffering with Alzheimer's disease. 

Activities such as arts and crafts enable many suffering with
Alzheimer's to remember and share stories from their lives.

Saving the Libraries Lost to Alzheimer’s Disease

By Ellen Woodward Potts and Daniel C. Potts

Storytelling is a part of our make-up as human beings. From the time our children are old enough to have any understanding at all, we teach them family stories, stories of our country, stories of our faith.

These stories give both children and adults a sense of belonging, a sense of place in the broader scheme of things.

One of the great tragedies of Alzheimer’s disease is the loss of personal history as memory fades. I've heard one person compare it to a burning library, and I think that’s an apt description.

My grandmother, Margaret Enloe Woodward, died of Alzheimer’s disease in 1995 at the age of 94. At her funeral, the pastor told the story of how around 1915, Grandmama rode across the mountains with her little sister sitting behind her on the horse, as the family moved to Sevierville, TN from the family farm they had just sold near Maggie Valley, NC.

I knew the farm later became the Mountain Farm Museum at the Great Smokey Mountain National Park, but I had no idea Grandmama and one of her sisters had ridden horseback across the mountains in the move.

I suppose my father told the pastor this story. How could I not have heard it before?

I realized at that moment how many changes Grandmama had seen in her lifetime -- two World Wars, the Great Depression, and the advent of electricity and automobiles, just to name a few. How I wish I had recorded her stories while I had the chance!

To help other families in this effort, our foundation, Cognitive Dynamics, sponsors an initiative called “Bringing Art to Life.”

We partner with the University of Alabama Honors College to offer a for credit course which brings art therapy to people with early to moderate Alzheimer’s living in West Central Alabama.

During art therapy, wonderful stories of the past are brought to the surface. The students enrolled the course record these stories, and meet with the participants with Alzheimer’s and their families to gain an even greater understanding of the person’s history.

In essence, they are pulling the books from the burning library.

Mary, one of the participants with Alzheimer’s disease, was withdrawn and uncommunicative, looking to her daughters to speak for her.

Reluctantly, we invited Mary’s family to enroll her as a participant in the course, all the time wondering if Mary’s condition was too far advanced to receive much benefit.

We were so wrong.

Two female students were assigned to record Mary’s life story. There were some awkward moments when they visited her home for the first time. Then, one of her daughters had the bright idea to bring out Mary’s wedding dress.

And Mary came to life.

To everyone’s amazement, Mary couldn’t stop talking about her husband, how much she loved him, their wedding day, the problems fitting the dress, and a hundred other details of that day more than 60 years before.

No, Mary could not have told the group what she had for breakfast a couple of hours before, but she could tell her story, and she felt valued. By the time the students left, Mary called them her “new granddaughters.”

Mary’s condition markedly improved through participating in the course, both from the students’ visits and through the art therapy. For Mary, nothing medical science could offer was as effective as being able to tell her story.

What objects are significant to your loved one with Alzheimer’s disease? Bring them out and ask about them. You may be surprised at the results.

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Ellen Woodward Potts, MBA has over 20 years’ experience in healthcare management and teaches “Leadership Development through Service,” a survey course of non-profit organizations, at the University of Alabama. She currently serves as Managing Partner for Dementia Dynamics, LLC, and as Board President for Caring Congregations, an inter-faith organization that operates 3 dementia daycare centers, a GPS locator program, and other dementia support services. Through A Pocket Guide for the Alzheimer’s Caregiver, she strives to honor the care her family members gave her maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother, both of whom had Alzheimer’s disease.