“At what stage is my loved one?” Caregiver’s of Alzheimer’s
disease want to know. As an Alzheimer’s Association support group facilitator I
present a printed form with a checklist of symptoms showing the Stages of
Alzheimer’s disease in four columns. I always add the advice that some
checkmarks may be in different stage groups and that the symptom pattern will
change.
What we really want to know is how long my loved one with
Alzheimer’s disease is going to live. How long will we have him or her with us
to love and to cherish and to care for? No matter which stage someone checks,
no one still can tell how long we have to live. Alzheimer’s disease is not the
only illness people have that will limit their lives; it is really the last
illness one dies from after surviving all else and forgetting, usually, how to
swallow.
People in the memory care facility where my husband lives
have died this year among other causes from kidney failure, a ruptured hernia and strokes. This
week my husband has a chest cold; I worry about pneumonia, but his immune
system is strong. He is ambulatory, he feeds himself, he toilets himself and is
able to communicate his needs to others. His personality has reverted back to
the pleasant, mannerly, sweet, caring, loving person he was before his
diagnosis. I am not ready for him to die.
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