Helping Us With Memory

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Mental illness is always much harder to deal with than physical ailments, as it can rob people of their very selfhood. When your loved ones cease to recognize you, there can be nothing more painful than watching them struggle to find a sense of identity amidst the memories that keep slipping away.

However, there are much more concrete and pragmatic difficulties that the caregivers of a memory loss victim must face.

In the initial stages, you have to convince the victim that this memory loss is real. People are notoriously inclined to forget that they forget, and this becomes even more serious as the degree of memory loss grows. At this stage, memory tests, games and exercises can slow down the onset of memory loss, hopefully keeping it at a manageable level and preventing full-on dementia.

Once dementia has set in, however, the caregiver is faced with a much greater responsibility. After a while, people with full-time jobs may find it impossible to care for their sick relatives on their own. A skilled nursing home, or a home nurse, is necessary to tackle the patient – no matter how “heartless” people claim the caregiver to be.

Excessive altruism will only push the caregiver closer to a mental breakdown, which is especially dangerous if – as is often the case – s/he is related to the patient. With the age of onset for certain diseases coming down drastically, there is a chance that taking care of a dementia-inflicted parent may push the caregiver towards the same fate even sooner.

A certain amount of distance is needed to maintain some sanity while dealing with a memory loss or dementia victim. If the caregiver continues to expect the patient to behave as normal, his/her own mental and emotional stability will end up being compromised. It is imperative that the caregivers realize one thing – the person they knew is disappearing, in an irreversible and painful process.

Personally, I find it effective to see ageing and infirm people as “children in reverse” – slowly, regressing from being perfectly active to being a crying, immobile vegetable. This helps me dissociate their behavior from the person I “knew” several years ago, and to handle it accordingly – knowing that the mind I have to deal with has a peculiar logic of its own, one that I can make an effort to understand but one that will never understand mine.

The “children” analogy already hints at the great deal of patience required to deal with memory loss victims. Additionally, many memory loss victims become depressed and mean as a consequence, making remarks calculated to provoke anger in the caregiver. It is best to see these as cries for attention coming from the illness, rather than a well-aimed jab from a healthy mind.

Every caregiver for a memory loss or dementia victim develops his/her own strategies for coping. Some resort to a favorite childhood game, others take up a repetitive act like knitting, yet others choose to laugh away their troubles. Above all, caregivers need to take care of themselves – otherwise, the hollow rock supporting the helpless patient may collapse any day.

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