WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 2023 - DEPRESSION, LONELINESS

 WEDNESDAY, MAY 10,2023 DEPRESSION

This week I've been looking at loneliness. The key point comes from the Surgeon General's comment that loneliness can be compared to smoking 15 cigarettes a day!!!

I generally don’t just copy and paste something from the internet, but the following was posted by a friend BE).  I think it makes a point for all of us:

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Robin Williams committed suicide because he was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia.

Bruce Willis just learned that his illness is Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and Lewy Body Dementia- One of the hardest things to process is the slow change in the one you love. Becoming a completely different person. Everything changes. Just so you know. It’s called the long goodbye. A rapidly shrinking brain is how a doctor described it. As the patient's brain slowly dies, they change physically and eventually forget who their loved ones are and become less themselves.

Patients can eventually become bedridden, unable to move, and unable to eat or drink or talk to their loved ones. There will be people who will scroll by this message because Dementia or Alzheimer's has not touched them. They may not know what it's like to have a loved one who has fought or is fighting a battle against Dementia or Alzheimer's.

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Karen adds:

I worked with four people in the “Memory Care” unit at my part-time job at the senior facility

There was little interaction.  The people seemed to be islands - alone, slowly dying.  The whole unit had dinner together, and sometimes it was so quiet you could hear people chewing.  The article says “shrinking brain”.  

One of the former workers there would belt out ‘Jesus Loves Me” as a prayer for the meal.  Most knew the music and some sang along.  Down inside these beautiful people were dying - some with physical ailments and most with mental ailments.  “Shrinking brain”.  

I tried to sing and joke with these wonderful senior people.  I filled up balloons and then let them go (that seemed to delight them as the balloons whooshed around the rooms).  Or I would tie the stem and bounce it around.  I came early on Sundays when they had a chapel service, listened to the facility chaplain, and sang with them (* see note below).

Likewise, once a week, there was a singing group for both the memory care and assisted living folks.  Showing up showed I cared about them.

I’ve heard these people cry - waiting for real (and imaginary) visits from their families.  One lady (in her mid-80s) told me several times she was waiting for her parents to come to visit.  (While that is possible, I don’t think her parents are still alive).  She wanted to go outside and sit by the entrance so she could see them when they arrived.  

Somedays the crying was contagious.  One would cry and then another and soon maybe six to eight people would cry missing their families.

Note - I am a paid staff member (although only part-time).  If you have a loved one and you can’t visit, hire somebody like me to spend time with your loved one.  I’ve been with TL for a year and one-half.  I push her in her wheelchair into the garden area and look at the flowers.  As we walk down the halls, I point out the pictures and the colors (she was quite the artist).  

Find something that they like to do.  I’ve done silly nursery rhymes and let them finish off - “Jack and Jill went …” (and wait for them to remember “up the hill”).  

But, all too frequently they sit in isolation, left alone - pushed out of society by dementia, depression, and loneliness. These are human beings.  Probably 90% are women, and most had children and spouses.  In most cases, the spouse died, and they are alone.  The kids are in New Jersey, Colorado, or California.  They have their lives and mom just isn’t part of that anymore.  

For the last two days, I’ve written about loneliness - and the “Memory Care” unit is a lonely area.  Sometimes there are visitors - but rarely.  (The visitors get tired of seeing Mom in a deteriorated state).  Many people sleep most of the time.  The facility does things to help - activities, weekly chapel service with the chaplain, singing groups, music, and movies - but the spiral is already tugging the people in this group down to the depths.  

I “preach” that LOVE WINS.  The winning of love might not happen in this life - may be in heaven, but loving these people with Lewy Body Dementia and other forms of dementia is LOVE.  

I’ve been taking my iPod tablet with me, and finding interesting videos.  (Okay, yes, before my trip to Big Bend National Park, my residents might have seen some of the videos of Big Bend more than once).  I sit with them, play games with them, watch videos with them, and . . . LOVE  THEM.  (There are some ugly things in this world, cancer, dementia, abuse, greed, and deteriorating parents and friends, but “now abide these three - faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is LOVE - 1 Corinthians 13:13).

LOVE WINS

LOVE TRANSFORMS

KAREN ANNE WHITE, ©, MAY 10, 2023