Walking in Alzheimer’s World!

An exercise simple enough to describe, impossible to carry out, explains our world navigation through which is often guided by our Caretaker.  Bob DeMarco describes it as metaphor for his world walking with his mother Dotty in Alzheimer’s World. It is apt and well worth reading. Entitled: Alzheimer's Disease Caregiving -- Like Walking Backwards with a Blindfold On Click on the title or on Archive to read.

Bob describes our world as seen from his eyes, the view of the Caretaker. My view is from other eyes that of a person with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). With many of us they are often blind eyes that can do no more than depend on the hand holding them.

Others, as in my case, have the blessing/curse of being aware of the shades as they are coming down. I find it a blessing.

I can use another metaphor to describe why I see it as a blessing. One of my more severe limitations form AD is being unable to distinguish the consequence associated with what I see.

A friend, another AD’r, describes this limitation as though you are walking into a dark room.  With nothing more to see than a flashlight beam to illuminate the room you see what falls in the beam of the light but not anything else.

Compare that to walking into a room fully illuminated. You see all that is in the room. With AD the flashlight beam shows what you can see.

I remember I could see all before AD. I did not realize I could see no more than what the flashlight illuminated after AD. I did see the inexplicable, how could I trip, fall, injure myself not seeing something in my path which was in plain sight. I could not explain it, knew something was awry.

Like the pain in my head it took me too many times to realize I was causing the pain by smashing my head with a hammer. Finally drawing a logical conclusion, I recognized something was not working.

Because of this I know why I cannot drive, I know why I should not ride my bike, or walk freely in heavy traffic. My cane is also something I use to protect me from myself. It slows me down and makes me more aware of my need to exercise caution.

I find this a blessing because it gives me reason and cause to hold tightly to my wife Diane’s hand as she sensitively caretakes me through Alzheimer’s World.

This essay of Bob DeMarco does describe our need of help better than any I have read before. If not for the caretaker we would be sent to that warehouse where we are kept called the Nursing Home. Thank you Bob and all Caretakers in our world.