From the accounts of other caregivers and my personal
experience with Kate, I am well aware that people with Alzheimer’s can change
from day to day and even from moment to moment, but something different has
happened with Kate in the past several months.
In a number of ways, she is better than she
was a year ago. Her improvement is something I didn’t expect. She doesn’t sleep
as much. She’s more cooperative when we perform our daily responsibilities (dressing
and undressing her as well as transferring her in a lift from her bed to her
recliner or wheelchair and back again). The other day she laughed as we picked
her up from her bed. It was almost like she was enjoying a ride in an amusement
park. She has even displayed some learning as we go through the various steps –
for example, where to put her hands. She is also talking a little more even
though most of what she says is unintelligible. She is more likely to respond to
staff and residents when they speak to her. Her response is typically a smile
or a facial expression, but sometimes she speaks in short phrases that are
quite clear.
In addition, she conveys by her facial
expressions and audible reactions that she clearly understands what we saying.
The other day I told the caregiver about recent research that involved bringing
dead pigs to “life.” Very quickly, she said, “Oh, God,” something I had never
heard her say before.
Her stroke in February had an immediate impact
on our evenings together. For weeks, she went to sleep shortly after the
caregiver left. That was a low blow for me because that had been the best time
of the day for us. It was a time when we had no further obligations and could
simply focus on being together.
Now, she is sometimes awake one to three hours
after the caregiver leaves. Our evenings are once again among the best parts of
our day. I say “among” because she has good moments at other times of the day
as well, particularly during the afternoon. She has never been a morning
person, and she continues to sleep or rest until 11:00 when the caregiver and I
get her up for the day. She rarely says a word until after lunch.
I’ve wondered why these changes have happened and see several possible explanations. The first seems obvious. She is simply recovering from her stroke. She was mostly comatose the first few days following the stroke. Since then, she has gradually reverted to a pattern of sleep that was typical before then.
She hasn’t made a complete recovery, however. Her
aphasia hasn’t improved significantly nor has the damage to her right leg that
she is unable to straighten. It is always bent at various degrees. In other ways,
the effects of the stroke seem to be a thing of the past.
Apart from her recovery from the stroke, I believe there are two other things that may account for her recent improvement. Two major events disrupted our lives during the past year and a half. First, we both had Covid just before Thanksgiving in 2020. Kate was hospitalized for eight days. Five months later, we moved to a continuing care (life plan) retirement community. Although Kate has never shown any signs that she was aware of either of these; our daily lives changed significantly as a result of both. Now, we’ve established a new routine.
We get her up shortly after the caregiver
arrives at 11:00. She eats her lunch between 11:45 and 12:30. During that time,
I go out for lunch and run errands. I usually return before 3:00. That’s when
we prepare for our afternoon visit to the café where Kate gets ice cream. We
are there almost an hour before moving to the dining room for dinner.
Our afternoon ice cream and our dinner in the
dining room are highlights of our day. They are not simply opportunities to eat.
They are times when we connect with other residents and staff. That’s important
for both of us. Kate receives special attention, something that many people at
this stage of dementia don’t experience. When people approach us, they
invariably speak to her first. They often comment about her hair and what she
is wearing. When she smiles (something she does more often now), they respond
with pleasure in much the same way that I do. I love seeing that and have to believe
that Kate does as well.
There is one other thing that may account for these changes. We changed our primary caregiver in June. The new person is a very caring person who is with us eight hours a day Monday through Friday. Kate has developed a feeling for the new person that she hasn’t had for anyone else.
When you combine the regular attention of the
caregiver who is with her eight hours a day, the personal contact she gets with
other residents and staff, and the time I spend with her, she receives a lot
more attention than she did before. I believe that establishing a new routine
and a new caregiver plays an important role in why she seems more at ease now.
I would like to believe that her Alzheimer’s has improved, but, in that respect, she is much the same. Her memory and other rational abilities are no better than they were before; however, her intuitive ability to experience the world around her is working quite well. She doesn’t know the names of the music she hears, but she enjoys it; she doesn’t know the names of the foods she eats, but she enjoys her meals; she laughs at things she thinks are funny, and she appreciates being recognized by people around her. Our current routine provides all of these, and Kate is able to experience them intuitively even if she can’t tell you where she is, the names of the people she is around, or do many of the things she used to do. All of these things make me believe she is more at ease now because her daily life provides her with the kind of experiences she can enjoy through her intuitive ability.
Addendum
I had written this post before my brother and
his wife as well as our nephew and his wife arrived for a brief visit yesterday
afternoon. Prior to their arrival, I wondered if they would be able to see the
Kate that I described in this post. I can’t tell you how elated I was that they
caught her on a very special day. She smiled a lot and also responded to their
comments and questions. We could clearly understand some of the things she said.
She even said goodbye to them when they left. The night before, my brother’s
wife asked if I thought Kate could understand what people say to her. I told
her I had seen plenty of evidence that she can. Yesterday, she got a first-hand
observation of that. It was a memorable experience for all of us.
