62 Tips For Caregivers Of Alzheimer's To Delay Shutdown

Sammie Marsalli

United States3 Books

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Advice & How To Biographies & Memoirs General Nonfiction

BIOGRAPHY
As an author, I am certainly not an expert or an authority on Alzheimer's. I am definitely not a professional author and didn't pretend to write an authoritative masterpiece. I never pretended to be any one of those things. I am simply an ordinary “John Doe” 24/7 Alzheimer’s caregiver, husband, sharing my experiences, reactions, and inventing therapies while caring for my wife at home with Alzheimer's. We have been married 44 years, 3 kids now grown up, a great dog most of those years, a typical family on our own, trying to hold on to my wife and avoid her shutdown.

Hospice home care for a loved one with Alzheimer's begins on the very first day it is diagnosed. This home care without any outside help is extremely difficult, but usually, there is no other option. Outside professional help is always welcome, but cannot respond “in real time” when radical behavioral changes occur. Only home caregivers can do it at that very moment. No one has the exact key as to how to respond to these changes, as there are no two profile behavioral changes alike in the same stage of the disease.

There isn't a set therapy, as each stage of Alzheimer's varies in its characteristics. Only your experiences can be your guide. “What works for me may not work for you.”

As a result, I began to invent my own home therapies. Family home caregivers find themselves alone, inventing their own home care to mitigate behavioral changes and needs.

I realize there are other Alzheimer’s home caregivers like me, “amateur”, trying to take care of a loved one with Alzheimer's. Like everyone, I was learning the hard way by trial and error to mitigate tremendous changes in behavior with my wife when they were happening.

As Alzheimer's home caregivers, we will sacrifice whatever it takes, suspend any activity we enjoy, ignore our necessities, and neglect our health to prevent our loved ones from “shutting down.” Whether we can see it or not, we know in their own way, our loved ones are just trying to live.

Hopefully, my books become a shortcut for Alzheimer’s caregivers, to avoid some of the desperation, frustration, and sadness on their tortuous caregiving journey.