So What Causes Our Discomfort with Alzheimer’s Disease?

You know that uncomfortable feeling when a friend, family member, or even an acquaintance tells you they or someone they know has Alzheimer’s disease.  The pit it your stomach takes over.  Your brain goes to mush.  The auto pilot response of, “Oh… err… umm… that’s too bad.”   The dead silence and awkward sigh.   You want to change the channel to one that is pleasant and comfortable for you.  And of course, this is about you, isn’t it?  Even though you know, it should really be about them, about their devastation, their reality.

So will you be the next to forget… or the next to be forgotten?

Wouldn’t it be nice to know people understood Alzheimer’s disease and were not afraid of it?  … afraid of you?

Alzheimer’s disease is almost worst than being told someone died.  Death is an outcome, it is black and white.  It has an end.  It is an end, but Alzheimer’s is different for ever person afflicted with the disease, and ever person affected by it.  There is no cure, or even a treatment plan to rid it.  There is a slow down plan, and a comfort plan, but both are crapshoots and ever changing.  

Many see Alzheimer’s as a living death.  The shell of the body remains, but what is inside is an unknown at any given moment.  There are no rules, no guidelines of what to do, nor is there a checklist of how things will progress. 

How do you comfort them?

How can you help them?

How do you get rid of the scary thoughts that cross your mind?

So how do you deal with it?

How do you react to it?

I would love to hear from my readers and see if I can help you find the some solutions to your speicifc questions.  If you haven’t already checked out the other pages on this site please do so.  I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the ideas shared to help you connect and understand the emotions of the process.