![]() This is another excerpt from THE ALZHEIMERS ACTION PLAN, a new book “… combining the insights of a world-class physician and an award-winning social worker… GETTING OTHERS TO UNDERSTAND Explaining Alzheimer’s to friends and family, including to those who have Alzheimer’s, is never easy and always important. 30. “How do you get your friends to understand that just because you have Alzheimer’s, you’re not deaf and dumb?” —A sixty-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s
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![]() The palliative care movement is the bridge from which research, findings, information and practical applications can flow back and forth between the 2 worlds (of acute care and hospice care) we have now. Palliative care is the vehicle to blend these worlds. Moving hospice information up to the pre-hospice world of serious illness…. moving palliative care along side of cure directed treatment to bridge total care of a person…moving the pre-hospice person to hospice without a crisis driven admission but rather from a quiet contemplation of choice. ![]() A representative from St. Martin’s Press contacted me about this new book, The Alzheimer’s Action Plan. I’ll be bringing excerpts of what they sent me for awhile. I thought I’d start with the following. APPENDIX A: STAGES OF SYMPTOM PROGRESSION IN EARLY THROUGH MODERATE ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE By Lisa Gwyther, M.S.W, ACSW This isn’t a tool that doctors use for staging patients, but it should give family members an idea of what happens to people with Alzheimer’s as the disease progresses. Doctors use other tests for determining what stage the patient is in. ![]() I was working as a case manager with a local hospice when my grandmother was diagnosed with lung cancer. She was in her late 70s, had been smoking for 60 years and had dealt with severe bouts of chronic bronchitis most of her life. The day she entered the hospital, I flew to Tampa. At first we thought she had a bad case of pneumonia. We thought she was dying. I slept on an air mattress in the room with her for about a week until we knew she would survive it. During this week we were told her pneumonia was due to a cancerous tumor obstructing her lower lung. She made it past the pneumonia, now all we had to deal with was her cancer. |
AuthorIn fall 2014, I moved some old blog posts here that I had written years ago from 2007 to 2010. Hope they are helpful. Archives
February 2010
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