Two Women

 

No, it's not about the famous italian movie 'Two Women' with Sophia Loren (widow), and her daughter, who had to leave Rome during the war.

My post is about two former neighbors of mine (rip), mother (widow) and daughter who had both Alzheimer.

What I've learned from their sad case is that genetics, even though it is inescapable,  can nevertheless  be delayed  -  provided the other two  factors on the pyramid, stress and nutrition, are kept under control. Nutrition is the easy part. We definitely can control it. Stress, is another matter; it  is not entirely in our hands. Sometimes, people have to leave home and/or work, , in order to survive, as stress in these places is too much for them; it kills.

The mother , a widow, lived alone in a small flat. Was of a calm nature and led a quiet, uneventful life. She got diagnosed with Alzheimer in her mid-seventies.When the disease progressed, she was placed in an adequate facility, where she was taken good care of. She was well over 90 when she passed.

The daughter lived with her husband and two teenage girls in an adjacent building. She had a stressful life, especially because of conflicts with her husband. Unfortunately for her, he retired early from work, and was constantly at home, doing nothing but criticizing her.

She was diagnosed with Alzheimer in her mid sixties, some ten years earlier than her mother. After getting diagnosed, she was given a live-in home carer.

Sometimes, I used to see her  with the carer outside , and it broke my heart. I 'd known her as a tall, talkative, active person - and there she was - her head down, not recognizing anyone, not talking, a fragment of the original person. With her, the disease progressed rapidly.

It seemed her two daughters (who'd left home but not the town) gave up on her. If they would have been there  to hug her, cuddle her, talk to her, maybe she would have felt something, reacted to love and attention, retained some form of humanity.

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We come into the world alone and we leave it alone, even though there are people around us, at birth and at funerals. Those with Alzheimer not only come and leave alone, but also live alone, in a world completely their own.

A Voice in the Night

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Middle of the night. I got awaken from my sleep by a woman's voice repeatedly calling (in hebrew): 'where are you' , 'where are you'.
It was creepy. I had no idea where exactly the voice came from: the street? the garden?the adjacent parking lot? it sounded like a voice coming from an alien world. 

After a few minutes, it occured to me that, perhaps, the voice belonged to a woman with dementia or alzheimer who had escaped, unnoticed from the nearby assisted-living facility (which has also a memory care wing), and was looking for her personal carer. I decided to call the police in our area  and ask them to urgently deal with the matter.

The police were quick. I looked out of the window and was relieved to see the blue flashing light of their car .   After about 5 minutes the nagging voice stopped, and I went back to bed.

The next day I made enquiries. She was found sitting on the garden stone edge, behind a car. It appeared I was only partially right. The woman had indeed dementia, but she wasn't a resident of the assisted living facility.  The police kept her for a while at the station until  family phoned to report her missing. The incident was brought to the attention of the Social Services.

Well, I was glad that it all ended  with no physical harm done to the poor woman. 

*- web picture - logo of dementia campaign