Dementia Reflection

 

Dementia Reflection of father Recently this woman, Emily Page, lost her father to frontotemporal dementia. His illness was a lengthy and painful experience for her entire family, which she documented in excruciating detail on her blog of dementia reflection. I recommend to anyone with a loved one suffering from cognitive and memory impairment, spend time reading this blog. You’ll learn about the disease, how to cope and how to circumvent some of the problems inherent in home and institutional care.

Emily is in the process of writing a book about her experiences with her father’s disease. The details of which are in her short bio below.

“Emily Page is a professional artist who also blogs for fun. A little more than a year before her father died from frontotemporal dementia, she started writing about her family’s journey through the disease. She has also been creating artwork to help her process her feelings surrounding his disease and death. After getting a tremendous response to both the paintings and the writing, she decided to combine the two into a book, recounting the sometimes hilarious and often heartbreaking reality of caring for someone with this condition. She recently launched a campaign on Publishizer to get enough pre-orders for the book to attract a publisher. To see the book proposal and help her by pre-ordering a copy for as little as $7, visit https://publishizer.com/fractured-memories/. You can see her art at http://emilypageart.com/ and read her blog at http://emilypageart.net/.”

And here are a few links to her posts. Be forewarned her language is honest, meaning expletives are used when no other words are appropriate. And have plenty of tissues on hand.

http://emilypageart.net/2016/01/08/im-so-royally-pissed-off-at-dementia/

http://emilypageart.net/2016/01/06/how-to-choose-a-dementia-care-facility/

http://emilypageart.net/2015/10/29/and-the-dementia-marches-on/

http://emilypageart.net/2015/09/04/altering-a-dementia-patients-appearance/

She is Not the Only One

Millions of American families are dealing with loved ones who have Alzheimer’s and other neuro-degenerative diseases. They cannot do it alone for too long before their own health and well-being is affected by the stress and exhaustion associated with 24 hour caregiving.  At some point, placement or hired help is considered as a viable alternative. Even a little help from a trained aide a few times a week makes a huge difference for the family’s primary caregiver, usually a spouse, daughter or son.  For anyone whose parent is a Veteran, contact the VA to find out about eligibility for either care or monetary benefits to pay for care. No one can do this alone for long without it taking a physical and emotional toll. This is a team effort.