Alzheimer's - Keeping Your Business On Track While Supporting Your Parent
49102
Home & Family > Elderly Care
Oct 12, 2007
suzibeth
Alzheimer's - Keeping Your Business On Track While Supporting Your Parent
Do you or any of your friends have a parent with Alzheimer's? What I'm sharing in this article would have been helpful for me to read prior to experiencing the drastic shift in my mother's lifestyle last year. I never expected to have such an emotional roller coaster. It took some innovative strategies to keep my business on track. Mom lives in a life care facility that has various levels of care. She was living in a garden home, completely independent other than interior and exterior maintenance and one meal a day at the communal dining room. Keeping a schedule becomes impossible. One of the first things I noticed was her confusion about what she had planned. I had a couple of her friends comment that she was not showing up at arranged times they had planned for dinner. Mom has kept a calendar for years where she writes anything that is planned and notes about what has happened. She's always been on time for any appointment, even early. For her to miss appointments was not a good sign. When I was going to pick her up for one of her medical appointments, she would get confused as to what day we would be going and leave me numerous messages asking why I hadn't arrived. This would also occur on the actual day of the appointment. She would be confused as to what time of day it was so would call me wondering when I would be there. Anxiety builds with the confusion. I tried to solve this problem by calling with just enough time for her to get ready for an appointment. We didn't talk about what day the appointment would be. This would make her anxious also because she wanted to know in advance when she would be going somewhere. For a long time she knew she was confused and was upset by that. She liked to be in control of what she was doing. This definitely felt like lack of control and loss of her independence. By her own decision, she had already given up driving. We never found out why, but suspect she had a close call that scared her and didn't want to be in an accident. Self-care deteriorates. When I started seeing a sink full of dirty dishes and clothing stacking up on her clothes rack, I could see that her habits had certainly changed. She has always kept an immaculate kitchen and took good care of her clothing. She stopped going to the dining room and chose to eat snacks at home instead. Her choices for meals were not nutritious. When we shopped, she wanted to buy various carbohydrates. Generally she would have had nutritious meals at the dining room. We didn't realize for a while that she was not going because she said she was going. When I checked with the dining room, I found out she hadn't been there for weeks. The only time she had gone was when I was there for a visit. No longer could we rely on her taking her prescribed medicines. In discussion with her physician, she decided to start her on Aricept, an Alzheimer's med. We knew with this additional med to take that she would definitely need to have someone see that she took her appropriate medications regularly. The service of having someone deliver meds was available where she lived and it helped her to stay on her own for a longer time. Mom resented the interruption to her sleep when the person arrived. I felt reassured that someone was also checking in on her on a regular basis. As time went on, Mom would not even be dressed when I arrived for a visit. I would need to help her shower and pick out her clothing. And sometimes it was even a struggle to convince her that she needed a shower. In the past, Mom was always fresh out of the shower, dressed to a T, and waiting for me when I would arrive for a visit or to take her to an appointment. Those months of watching Mom's decline and working to give her the care that was appropriate at each stage were extremely stressful. I found it difficult to keep focused on my business and to feel passion in any part of my life. With skillful counseling and coaching, I developed strategies for rekindling my passion and getting the focus back in my business. I knew that I had to take care of myself in order to be there to support all the aspects of my life and business. After six months of various strategies to support her to stay independent, my siblings, Mom's physician, and I made the decision that Mom really needed to be in the Care Center division of the life care facility. This was a difficult move because Mom was very attached to all the collection of family furniture and endless mementos of her full life. We have surrounded her with family photos, recognition plaques she was awarded over the years, and hand work done by various members of the family including her mother. It was important to Mom that the family would appreciate the cherished belongings. My sister and brother and I sorted through her home, making sure that nothing was discarded that was part of our family heritage. We worked with all the family to find out what each person would like to have from the home. I took countless photos and posted them on the web so that family from Alaska to Washington, DC could view and choose items that had meaning and memories for them. Mom is well cared for and still very much appreciates our visits. She is still pretty clear about all of the family, including many great grandchildren. Days and times and location are foggy for her, but with a very structured schedule, she is peaceful knowing what will happen next and that her needs will be met. I'm able to be there for her with an open heart because of the steps I took to restore my resilient spirit.
If you're dealing with Alzheimer's in your family and need some support in creating strategies for coping with all aspects of your life, check with Suzanne Holman, your Exuberant Productivity Coach and take the free Exuberance Assessment! Exuberant Productivity.com
send email to suzibeth
Write a Review
Add to My Favorite
Refer it to Friend
Report Article
Other links owned by this user
You may be letting your fear of criticism rule your life. This is one of the key sources of struggle people face. It is easy to try to please everyone all the time.
Category:
Is it really better to be organized and structured than to have free flow and flexibility? Six key benefits of messiness.
Category:
Is struggle a part of your everyday existence? You know it doesn't have to be that way. There are remedies and great rewards for letting go of the struggle in your life.
Category:
Being fully engaged using our mental, emotional and physical energy is essential for our optimum productivity in work and in our personal lives.
Category:
If you are having problems having peaceful sleep for any reason, it can have negative effects on many parts of your life and your physical and mental health.
Category:
If you find yourself being super critical of yourself, you are probably a perfectionist. You may even be proud of the fact that you are a perfectionist.
Category:
8. Life Challenges Can Create Havoc With Your Business: Accessing And Protecting Data During A Crisis
Emergency circumstances not only affect our personal safety and our homes, but can also have devastating effects on our businesses. Putting some thought into all the aspects of your business that would be affected in a crisis situation can save you lots o
Category:
Do you or any of your friends have a parent with Alzheimer's? It takes some innovative strategies to keep your business on track while supporting your parent.
Category:
When unexpected life challenges arise, how can a woman financial advisor keep her hard-earned credibility intact?
Category:
Mind mapping can seem like such a disorderly process. You pull out a big sheet of paper, get the markers rounded up, and start writing, drawing circles and lines in all directions. How can this help with focus?
Category:
When you are faced with unexpected life challenges, you need to have strategies for keeping your business thriving. Here are five tips for managing your work away from your office.
Category:
There can be activities that are very important that can be overlooked because there is no one pushing for their completion. It is critical that you not let what seems urgent to take all of your attention.
Category:
Whether you are visiting with your children and grandchildren or with other friends or family who have small children, here are seven tips for making the shared time a wonderful experience.
Category:
When family challenges make it necessary to alter your schedule drastically, it's important for you to have an alternative plan to keep your business growing and thriving.
Category:
Sleep deprivation can be caused by a number of factors related to your work. Here are 7 possible ways.
Category:
Are there really any big consequences to cheating ourselves out of adequate sleep? Let's look at some solid facts about the subject of sleep.
Category:
Your contentment around wealth does not really focus on external events. It is more about the vision you're using to view your life.
Category:
All kinds of experiences can happen during flights. What seemed like an annoyance on a flight turned out to be a tremendous blessing and inspiration.
Category:
Other links at Home & Family > Elderly Care
Though there are manual wheelchairs, the electric wheelchair is a better choice for those permanently confined to a wheelchair.
Category:
A mobility scooter can be a life-saver giving the user independence and freedom to make short journeys around town or to visit the family. This article looks the factors to consider when buying a mobility scooter so you don't waste your money.
Category:
Having sufficient nutrients in the body is a general goal for everyone. It doesn't necessarily take great effort to achieve this goal. If you simply follow a diet rich in vitamins and minerals, you should be healthy. However, taking medication,
Category:
Tips for Baby Boomers on passing along family values for the next generation.
Category:
The Sixty Year Old Personality Benjamin Franklin once said that all would live long, but none would be old. What should we actually expect of ourselves after sixty years? Must we eventually become senile and mentally old, or can we have a long life and st
Category:
Site Sponsor
Directory Statistics
Articles: 68205
Categories: 501
Yahoo Entertainment
