When the child becomes the parent
Afew months ago, I received a call that my father was missing. No one knew where he was or how he was doing. About an hour later, I received another call. My dad was with my half-brother, who I hadn’t seen in four years and they were waiting for me to come and pick him up. Immediately, my husband and I got into our car and picked him up. He had no idea who his sisters were, who my brother was or who I was. His eyes seemed so lost and I was heartbroken.
After his hospital stay, various follow-up evaluations and appointments, it was confirmed that my father has Alzheimer’s disease. While he is on a medication that is certainly helping, our lives have changed significantly.
Having to take care of a parent is one of the most challenging experiences ever. Trying to make lifechanging decisions for someone who was always so independent is nervewracking. Constantly, I find myself convincing others that I am making the best decisions possible, when really I am convincing myself.
It’s so hard to explain to my extended family that he is well taken care of even when he doesn’t know it. I never thought I would be saying the following phrases more often than not. “No, my house did not burn down.” “Yes, I double checked, he has food in the fridge.”
Donna Schempp, LCSW, wrote Ten Real-Life Strategies of Dementia Caregiving. To those of us dealing with parents with dementia, this can be really helpful.
• Being reasonable, rational and logical will just get you into trouble. As much as we try to explain it, it will not make sense.
• People with dementia do not need to be grounded in reality. It’s OK if you ask them to tell you their story. It doesn’t need to be what is really going on.
• You cannot be a perfect caregiver. Just as in any other area in life, you can’t be perfect. There will be times where you get frustrated and learning to forgive yourself is just as important.
• Therapeutic lying reduces stress. It’s OK to tell your loved one that you are going to have lunch and then coincidentally stop at the doctor’s office.
• Making agreements doesn’t work. You can’t hold your loved one accountable. You need to change the environment around them.
• Doctors often need to be educated by you. Only you can tell the doctor what happens at home.
• You can’t do it all. When people offer their help, accept it.
• It is easy to both overestimate and underestimate what your loved one can do. It’s so hard to find the balance, but you have to remember every day is different. What they were able to do one day, they may not be able to do the following day.
• Tell, don’t ask. For your loved one, finding an answer to the simplest questions can be so challenging.
• It is perfectly normal to question the diagnosis when someone has moments of lucidity. People don’t see your loved one all the time, therefore, they may question what you tell them and it may feel uncomfortable, especially on a good day. Don’t feel bad. You really know what is happening on a daily basis.
If you are dealing with a loved one who has dementia, don’t forget to take care of yourself. If you know someone who has a family member who has dementia, don’t forget to offer help. Even just offering to help instead of asking questions makes a world of a difference to the caregiver.
Diana Maldonado is a community outreach specialist at Yuma Regional Medical Center. She can be reached at dmaldonado@yumaregional.org.
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CHICAGO — Teen suicide attempts in the U.S. declined after same-sex marriage became legal and the biggest impact was among gay, lesbian and bisexual kids, a study found.
The research found declines in states that passed laws allowing gays to marry before the Supreme Court made it legal nationwide. The results don’t prove there’s a connection, but researchers said policymakers should be aware of the measures’ potential benefits for youth mental health.
Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for all U.S. teens. Suicidal behavior is much more common among gay, lesbian and bisexual kids and adults; about 29 percent of these teens in the study reported attempting suicide, compared with just 6 percent of straight teens.
Laws that have the greatest impact on gay adults may make gay kids feel “more hopeful for the future,” said lead author Julia Raifman, a researcher at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The measures also could create more tolerance and less bullying, making these teens feel less stigmatized. Those effects could also benefit straight teens but more research is needed to determine how the laws might influence teen behavior, Raifman said. The study was published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics .
The researchers analyzed data on more than 700,000 public high school students who participated in government surveys on risky youth behavior from 1999 through 2015, the year the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.
About 230,000 students reported being gay, lesbian or bisexual. The surveys didn’t ask about transgender status. They included questions about suicide attempts, smoking and alcohol or drug use.
In 32 states that enacted same-sex marriage laws during the study, suicide attempts dropped 7 percent among all students and 14 percent among gay kids after the laws were passed. There was no change in suicide attempts in states without those laws.
The study only included suicide attempts, not deaths. The new work makes an important contribution to identifying how laws limiting gay rights may affect psychological and physical health, said Columbia University public health researcher Mark Hatzenbuehler.