Alzheimer's Disease and Family Care Givers

AOL's news of the day just posted the story of an 84 yr. old gentleman living with Alzheimer's Disease and his 53 yr. old caregiver son. Only by the grace of God are the events revealed in this story, not enacted time and time again in similar situations.

Son and father had apparently never had a close relationship. Once the father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease and began to have serious enough symptoms that he could not be left alone, his son became his caregiver. The story reveals a difficult to care for man and a son who is frustrated and angered by his father's outbursts and failure to listen to him.

One late afternoon, a friend called the son and invited him to join her at the beach. Of course, he would have to take his father along. Not long after arriving at the beach, the father wandered down toward the water and took both his outer shorts and diaper off. The son immediately went to his father and roughly threw the diaper into the water and tried to retrieve the outer shorts which his father insisted "I don't want on."

From this point, the events are muddled. Some witnesses reported that the son dragged his father to the water and that, although he was not totally under water, he was ingesting water and becoming non responsive. Others said that it took the son a considerable amount of time to attempt to respond to his father's distress. When several persons phoned for an ambulance, the son was reported to be angry and yelling that there was no need for the ambulance. When it arrived, the son told the paramedics to leave; that they were not needed.

Despite the son's protests, the gentleman was taken to the emergency room. He was eventually moved to the intensive care unit where he died the next morning. Autopsy revealed conditions compatible with near drowning and the death was declared to be a homicide.

The situation and actions described in the article are deplorable. Those of us who have never been primary caregivers to parents with dementia/Alzheimer's Disease or other memory/abusive conditions, have no idea what that must be like. Neither we, nor our parents expect that we will be changing their incontinent pads or orientating them to time and place repeatedly, or finding ourselves the target of abusive language and lack of cooperation.

This is truly an opportunity to reach out to the caregiver as Jesus has told us that we must do in order to truly be his disciples. It is easier for most of us to respond to something tangible such as lack of food, the loss of a home or job or insurance. How do we respond when someone has a disease such as Alzheimer's that gradually muddles their memory, recognition, self sufficiency.
They have been stripped of much of what makes us human.

There simply is no excuse for the actions of the son in the AOL story yet, in many instances, "there but by the grace of God are we." I've seen it in nursing homes where staff hear the same things, observe the same behaviors, and feel the same frustration eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, and they finally find themselves grabbing a resident's arm and nearly dragging them to the dining room because telling them it is time for lunch and taking their hand yields no response other than opposition. Adult children stop visiting their parents because they have had the same conversation each visit for over a year.

Here, you and I must ask in all sincerity, "what would Jesus do?" We know the answer. He would reach out to those caregivers and offer them respite. He would listen to their concerns and the venting of their anger and frustration, and he would encourage them to return to their loved one remembering that despite forgetfulness, anger, rejection, confusion, they are still one's parent's and that we, as Christians, are called to love them as we did when we could laugh and tell stories, make shared decisions, and not worry about them disrobing, swearing at absolutely nothing, and pushing us away. Jesus does not promise that all of life will be easy, but he does give us guidelines to help us through both the good and the rough times.