People Who Care Can Ease Isolation
As family and friends of Nancy Rockwell searched last week for the lost victim of Alzheimer’s disease, thousands of others in the Inland Northwest searched, and grieved, silently along with the family.
These silent folks are fluent in Alzheimer’s disease, because they’ve lost family members to it.
They understand why Mrs. Rockwell might still be driving, even with a diagnosis of dementia. They understand how in those years early in the disease, the victim drifts in and out of normalcy, losing memories and skills bit by bit, like tracks of music erasing slowly from those old-fashioned eight-track tapes.
The driving skill is one many victims cling to, a piece of freedom. And it’s sometimes hard for families to take it away. This is one of the complicated truths about Alzheimer’s disease.
They also understood how the farmer Mrs. Rockwell asked for directions could give those directions to a woman with Alzheimer’s and believe that it was an understood conversation.
“It takes 20 minutes of talking to someone with early Alzheimer’s before you might be able to notice that something’s not clicking,” says Ray Raschko, one of the pioneers in programs for Alzheimer’s families in the Inland Northwest.
The day their loved one was found, Rockwell family members thanked the community for its support. Mrs. Rockwell was involved in the community; she was an attorney who represented abused and neglected children. Her last days on Earth proved to be a continuation of service, because throughout the search for her, the community became educated in Alzheimer’s disease.
Everyone should know more. Now, 4 million over age 65 suffer from the disease and another 380,000 have the early-onset type. In the Inland Northwest, there are 36,000 victims and an estimated 124,000 family members and caregivers. By the middle of the next century, 14 million people will have the disease, unless a cure is found.
Communities can play an important role in protecting vulnerable older people. The Inland Northwest was years ahead of other communities in services for those with dementia. Ray and Marie Raschko, Elder Services and other agencies pioneered important programs, including the Inland Northwest Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association (800-256-6659), Holy Family Adult Day Centers, and the Gatekeeper program.
This last program, now done internationally, trains bank tellers, power company employees, police and fire workers and others to spot dementia in the isolated older people, those without family and friends. Another truth of Alzheimer’s is you can’t handle it alone. Help and education are out there.
The day Mrs. Rockwell was found, the newspaper published a picture of her Ford Explorer stuck in the middle of a field outside Oakesdale. The picture provides a metaphor for the disease. The fields were filled with machinery tracks leading every which way, similar to the way the mind’s thought patterns jumble and cross. The town was just above the rise, seeable but perhaps unreachable, the way normalcy must feel to victims.
No people were in the picture, and the disease can be the loneliest place in the world. People who care, who understand the victims, can ease the isolation of Alzheimer’s. People like the Rockwells, their friends, and the thousands of silent mourners who grieve with them today.