Saturday, December 23, 2006
I'm commenting on a particularly astute comment, here...
...on the immediately previous post, because it brought me up short and I want to acknowledge this. For those of you who don't make a habit of noticing or reading comments (I'm a fringe member of this group...I usually read comments only when they already exist as I'm writing a comment, although I do have exceptions to this rule), here's the part of the comment I'll be addressing, left by Mona, author of The Tangled Neuron:
This irritation of mine isn't new. It's one of the reasons why I have never bothered to have my mother's dementia tested. As well, aside from my dim view of question-and-answer dementia tests and memory boosters, my mother takes a highly ironic view of those that have been occasionally tried on her by well-meaning but thoughtless medical professionals, as well.
At any rate, the point of this post is that living with someone with dementia is a circumstance that fosters confusion over clarity. As a caregiver (and sometimes, as in my mother's case, as A Demented One), one day you hit upon a idea to try that could be labeled "Brain Stimulation". The next, you realize how ridiculous and ultimately maddening it is to have people trying to prod a demented brain into some semblance of normalcy (or, at any rate, what those of us who pat ourselves on the head and refer to ourselves as "not demented" like to think of as normalcy). One observation I've made, of which Mona just reminded me, is that the Demented-Lite (and sometimes those further into dementia) sometimes have a less agitated view of their mental acuity (or lack thereof) than those who tend to them. A lot, of course, depends on the people who surround The Demented One. I'm sure, if I worried about my mother's dementia, she would be more prone to irritation over her creative memory than I.
Dementia is a complicated phenomenon. It isn't exclusive to aging, as those who labor with conditions like schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder tell us. It comes in so many shapes, sizes and trajectories that many of its displays aren't labeled "dementia"; i.e., the last time you had a severe cold, felt awful all over and found yourself contemplating, in your feverish state, your life as though it was a series of nothing but miserable failures, did you consider yourself demented? Chances are, you were. But, you know, bed rest, fluids, maybe an analgesic and a little sympathy "cured" your "dementia".
It'll be awhile, I'm sure, before we have a truly effective grasp of dementia. In the meantime, I intend to remember that every time I try to sneak up on my mother's brain in order to "stimulate" it, well, I need to stimulate my own, as well.
I'm hugely amused by your mom's awareness of your attempts to stimulate her memory, and I'm sure she doesn't mind. But it occurs to me that some people with memory problems resent BrainAge, etc. and people's attempts to "maintain their brains."When I read this comment, I had to laugh, with chagrin. She inadvertently pointed out a critical split in my thinking about dementia. On the one hand, I do, indeed, work hard to stimulate my mother's memory, despite the fact that I continue to have mixed success. I'm lucky that Mom's amused, rather than irritated, by what I do (and luckier, still, that some of the stuff I present, like Brain Age, don't register with her as therapy so much as fun; as you may recall, she's the one who decided she wanted to try it when we viewed the news segment about it much earlier this year. If you've read me for any length of time, you know, too, that I'm more fascinated by my mother's dementia than concerned about it. At any rate, when I received Mona's comment, I remembered that I had expressed similar sentiments about brain stimulation and dementia just a few days ago, over at Fading From Memory, Mike Pritchard's journal (link will take you to the comment). Since I left mine, Patty Doherty, webmistress of The Unforgettable Fund has left a similar comment.
This irritation of mine isn't new. It's one of the reasons why I have never bothered to have my mother's dementia tested. As well, aside from my dim view of question-and-answer dementia tests and memory boosters, my mother takes a highly ironic view of those that have been occasionally tried on her by well-meaning but thoughtless medical professionals, as well.
At any rate, the point of this post is that living with someone with dementia is a circumstance that fosters confusion over clarity. As a caregiver (and sometimes, as in my mother's case, as A Demented One), one day you hit upon a idea to try that could be labeled "Brain Stimulation". The next, you realize how ridiculous and ultimately maddening it is to have people trying to prod a demented brain into some semblance of normalcy (or, at any rate, what those of us who pat ourselves on the head and refer to ourselves as "not demented" like to think of as normalcy). One observation I've made, of which Mona just reminded me, is that the Demented-Lite (and sometimes those further into dementia) sometimes have a less agitated view of their mental acuity (or lack thereof) than those who tend to them. A lot, of course, depends on the people who surround The Demented One. I'm sure, if I worried about my mother's dementia, she would be more prone to irritation over her creative memory than I.
Dementia is a complicated phenomenon. It isn't exclusive to aging, as those who labor with conditions like schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder tell us. It comes in so many shapes, sizes and trajectories that many of its displays aren't labeled "dementia"; i.e., the last time you had a severe cold, felt awful all over and found yourself contemplating, in your feverish state, your life as though it was a series of nothing but miserable failures, did you consider yourself demented? Chances are, you were. But, you know, bed rest, fluids, maybe an analgesic and a little sympathy "cured" your "dementia".
It'll be awhile, I'm sure, before we have a truly effective grasp of dementia. In the meantime, I intend to remember that every time I try to sneak up on my mother's brain in order to "stimulate" it, well, I need to stimulate my own, as well.
