Wednesday, May 31, 2006
"Be afraid, be very afraid."
I guess I'm late on the uptake on this one. I heard a snippet of news a couple of days ago, while my mother was watching it, regarding a possible connection between elderly women watching soaps and talk shows and "cognitive impairment". If you're interested, here's a link to one of several versions of the story.
I was vaguely paying attention and my initial reaction, voiced to my mother from the dinette while I was chopping something, was, "Oh, please! The next thing you know they'll say there's a 'connection' [I mimed quotation marks] between sitting in rocking chairs and cognitive impairment!"
My mother laughed. She loves her rocking chair, even though she never really rocks in it and, thus, I've blocked the rockers to make it easier for her to sit and rise.
To be fair, the version of the story to which I've linked above expresses more confusion about this issue than anything else. Of course, though, the version which I heard was a 30 second oral, declarative exposition, upon which the anchor woman who read it commented, "Ah, that's too bad. I love my soaps."
The way I see it, the truth is that everything we are capable of perceiving contributes, in some large or small way, to cognitive dynamics and the relationships among all these contributors are, at this time, so tangled as to be indecipherable. My mother is a good example. She watches a lot of TV and videos. She likes them. Two days ago, when I suggested, in the middle of an episode of one of her favorite shows, that we read aloud, she told me that she enjoys "[her] TV" and, at that moment, didn't want to be distracted from the particular show. Her preferences are wide ranging and the only specific television shows she watches on a regular basis are those few I watch on a regular basis: Currently none, since all my regulars are on seasonal hiatus. Over the last year, though, the regulars have been, in no particular order:
Frankly, fear permeates our society to the point where I believe it is the cause of many of our ills, rather than the symptom. I'm not immune. I'm afraid of Ancienthood, for reasons I've discussed previously in these journals. I'm also afraid of what my life will be like when my mother dies. Luckily, though, those are just about my only fears, my others, including the fear I'm supposed to have of identity theft, having been met and bested over these last few years of being my mother's companion and fighting many fears on her behalf, thus benefitting, myself, in the process.
I just can't get upset, anymore, about some nebulous, suggested relationship between my mother's love of television, what she watches and the state of her vascular dementia. I can't be bothered. She talks back to programs she watches on TV, sometimes with me, sometimes without me. This seems to have no effect on her cognitive impairment. She does crossword puzzles, although not as often as she used to. This hasn't done anything to "improve" her cognitive impairment. She occasionally seems to be a bit more alert when we're experiencing a period of movement but, frankly, she is also a bit more alert when she's insisted on indulging herself in more than her usual amount of sleep. She reads gossip tabloids (six of them) every week and digests and discusses the stories (usually not the celebrity stories) with an acuity and verve that would make you think her brain was in tip-top shape.
My father, who was a raging (literally; he wasn't a happy drunk, but then he wasn't a happy man, either) alcoholic for many decades, used to wish that he would develop some sort of cognitive impairment, specifically Alzheimer's, so he'd have an excuse for a lot of his behavior, especially his relentless tendency to hate and give up on life. It never happened for him and I believe he was disappointed that it didn't. My mother, previous to becoming cognitively impaired, has always been afraid of it because of her mother's and sister's experiences. Yet, it happened for her and she's at peace with her impairment, especially, I think, since it is of a different type than those of her mother and sister and she lives with someone who responds to it differently than the responses she witnessed to her mother's and sister's impairments. At this time it is unlikely that her cognitive impairment can be improved and she's at the age where the mutual irritation of my attempts to involve her in dubious steps to improvement isn't worth the effort, for her or me.
People, if we don't know what lurks in the shadows we need to peer, with wonder, curiosity and a willingness to refrain from attaching meaning to the murk until we understand its nature, rather than glancing fearfully at the flotsam and imagining monsters where none may exist.
Funny how in a country where we can barely get through a day without hearing someone say, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," we appear to be addicted to fear.
Perhaps yet another 12-step program is in order?
And, hey, what about Animal Planet and the elderly? Doesn't that connection seem suspicious to anyone?
Later.
I was vaguely paying attention and my initial reaction, voiced to my mother from the dinette while I was chopping something, was, "Oh, please! The next thing you know they'll say there's a 'connection' [I mimed quotation marks] between sitting in rocking chairs and cognitive impairment!"
My mother laughed. She loves her rocking chair, even though she never really rocks in it and, thus, I've blocked the rockers to make it easier for her to sit and rise.
To be fair, the version of the story to which I've linked above expresses more confusion about this issue than anything else. Of course, though, the version which I heard was a 30 second oral, declarative exposition, upon which the anchor woman who read it commented, "Ah, that's too bad. I love my soaps."
The way I see it, the truth is that everything we are capable of perceiving contributes, in some large or small way, to cognitive dynamics and the relationships among all these contributors are, at this time, so tangled as to be indecipherable. My mother is a good example. She watches a lot of TV and videos. She likes them. Two days ago, when I suggested, in the middle of an episode of one of her favorite shows, that we read aloud, she told me that she enjoys "[her] TV" and, at that moment, didn't want to be distracted from the particular show. Her preferences are wide ranging and the only specific television shows she watches on a regular basis are those few I watch on a regular basis: Currently none, since all my regulars are on seasonal hiatus. Over the last year, though, the regulars have been, in no particular order:
- Big Love
- Boston Legal
- The L Word
- Deadwood and it's reruns (we're gearing up for the new season as I write)
- M*A*S*H
- Walker, Texas Ranger (this is a relatively new, accidental favorite)
- Anything on the Animal Planet Channel
- Any shows about God, Abrahamic religions, the Abrahamic Bible (in any of its many incarnations) or organized spirituality on non-religious channels
- all kinds of drama and comedy, as long as it isn't what she would call "dense", which usually means there's a lot of sexual innuendo and/or slapstick
- historical dramas (especially, lately, about queens)
- she has to know what a particular talk show episode is about before deciding to watch it and refuses lots of them
- a variety of shows on the "scientific" channels, especially those focusing on the history of science, astronomy and geology
Frankly, fear permeates our society to the point where I believe it is the cause of many of our ills, rather than the symptom. I'm not immune. I'm afraid of Ancienthood, for reasons I've discussed previously in these journals. I'm also afraid of what my life will be like when my mother dies. Luckily, though, those are just about my only fears, my others, including the fear I'm supposed to have of identity theft, having been met and bested over these last few years of being my mother's companion and fighting many fears on her behalf, thus benefitting, myself, in the process.
I just can't get upset, anymore, about some nebulous, suggested relationship between my mother's love of television, what she watches and the state of her vascular dementia. I can't be bothered. She talks back to programs she watches on TV, sometimes with me, sometimes without me. This seems to have no effect on her cognitive impairment. She does crossword puzzles, although not as often as she used to. This hasn't done anything to "improve" her cognitive impairment. She occasionally seems to be a bit more alert when we're experiencing a period of movement but, frankly, she is also a bit more alert when she's insisted on indulging herself in more than her usual amount of sleep. She reads gossip tabloids (six of them) every week and digests and discusses the stories (usually not the celebrity stories) with an acuity and verve that would make you think her brain was in tip-top shape.
My father, who was a raging (literally; he wasn't a happy drunk, but then he wasn't a happy man, either) alcoholic for many decades, used to wish that he would develop some sort of cognitive impairment, specifically Alzheimer's, so he'd have an excuse for a lot of his behavior, especially his relentless tendency to hate and give up on life. It never happened for him and I believe he was disappointed that it didn't. My mother, previous to becoming cognitively impaired, has always been afraid of it because of her mother's and sister's experiences. Yet, it happened for her and she's at peace with her impairment, especially, I think, since it is of a different type than those of her mother and sister and she lives with someone who responds to it differently than the responses she witnessed to her mother's and sister's impairments. At this time it is unlikely that her cognitive impairment can be improved and she's at the age where the mutual irritation of my attempts to involve her in dubious steps to improvement isn't worth the effort, for her or me.
People, if we don't know what lurks in the shadows we need to peer, with wonder, curiosity and a willingness to refrain from attaching meaning to the murk until we understand its nature, rather than glancing fearfully at the flotsam and imagining monsters where none may exist.
Funny how in a country where we can barely get through a day without hearing someone say, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," we appear to be addicted to fear.
Perhaps yet another 12-step program is in order?
And, hey, what about Animal Planet and the elderly? Doesn't that connection seem suspicious to anyone?
Later.
Comments:
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originally posted by Deb: Wed May 31, 04:42:00 PM 2006
Gail, I'm reading your post and thinking "We (as a society) don't even know what 'normal' is, and we think we can diagram dementia?" You've said it all so beautifully. To all the folks who would reduce dementia (in its infinite variety) to excessive TV watching I would say: Well, then, explain Ralph Waldo Emerson. A mind of the highest order and the best practices can lose the elasticity that we call sanity. People nowadays have big problems accepting what they can't control, so they make up all kinds of oversimplified explanations--in itself, that isn't so harmful, but many people then use these assumptions to try to control others and to judge them.
You are so right--we need a little humility and wonder, rather than fear.
I'm actually trying to get my mother to be more interested in TV! She used to watch Little House on the Prairie and Touched by an Angel, but now has trouble following any plot. Someone else I know mentioned how much her mom liked Animal Planet, I'll have to try that. I would love to have my mom engaged in almost anything at this point.
Take care of yourself.
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Gail, I'm reading your post and thinking "We (as a society) don't even know what 'normal' is, and we think we can diagram dementia?" You've said it all so beautifully. To all the folks who would reduce dementia (in its infinite variety) to excessive TV watching I would say: Well, then, explain Ralph Waldo Emerson. A mind of the highest order and the best practices can lose the elasticity that we call sanity. People nowadays have big problems accepting what they can't control, so they make up all kinds of oversimplified explanations--in itself, that isn't so harmful, but many people then use these assumptions to try to control others and to judge them.
You are so right--we need a little humility and wonder, rather than fear.
I'm actually trying to get my mother to be more interested in TV! She used to watch Little House on the Prairie and Touched by an Angel, but now has trouble following any plot. Someone else I know mentioned how much her mom liked Animal Planet, I'll have to try that. I would love to have my mom engaged in almost anything at this point.
Take care of yourself.
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