Memory Loss

Losing your mind happens in stages. Medical professionals have created lists of stages that a person will go through when afflicted with dementia. You can track someone’s behavior through these stages and, ideally, prepare yourself and them for what will come next: the deterioration of the brain. The brain is tricky, though, and can spend years convincingly acting as though there is nothing wrong. All of a sudden, it seems to the person suffering the loss, there is no more environmental control, no bodily control. No more driving.  No more laundering or cooking. No more bathing. All basic freedoms and dignities are slowly eroded away, until what is left is dependence and vulnerability; the control of others. If the brain would give way, relent and allow you to sink into a benign muddle, content and infantile, it might be a peaceful way to go out. The brain however, keeps poking at you, egging you on trying to reboot and restore the previous level of function; teasing you, telling you that you’ve been functioning all along and that you don’t need help. The brain is belligerent in it’s biological imperative to create function and reason. The brain refuses to believe that it’s no longer functioning.

What is most misunderstood about memory loss is its erratic incompleteness. This can become frustrating to a caregiver; the patient seems to be able to remember to go to the bathroom, to ask for help when it’s needed, to wash hands, but one time out of 10, will end up crawling on the floor with no pants on, and will become belligerent and stubborn, insisting that everything is fine, this is the way it’s always been, there’s nothing wrong.

No amount of explaining does any good, because the brain which is affected by dementia cannot process information. The brain cannot understand how a lecture or an explanation fits into the space-time continuum. Short term memory is a thing of the past, and a simple sentence is uttered in frustration over and over, and is forgotten again and again. Let me help you put on your pants. I don’t have pants on? No, let’s put them on. I don’t need pants! You don’t have pants on. Don’t I have any pants? Why aren’t my pants on? Let me help you put your pants on. I don’t need help with any pants. I’ll put them on when I’m ready! Where are my pants? I’m getting cold, aren’t you going to help me put these pants on?

A glimmer here and there of the way the brain used to be capable of functioning; a spark of energy in one area for 5 or 10 minutes. Then oblivion.

My grandmother is in the later stages of dementia. For about two years now, she’s needed help doing most things. Her decades long Tinnutis makes auditory hallucinations more and more common as her brain struggles to maintain normality. She likes to have the television running in the background, to overcome the ringing in her ears that is always there, despite her hearing aides. But dementia has stolen her cognitive ability to follow a story line, or understand a plot or scheme being played out in a movie or even an hour-long program. What we are left with is a handful of shows my  teenage son and I lump into one category as The Judges. These are televised, simulated courtroom settings where a “judge” hears out an argument between two people and renders a “verdict”. They are generally half hour programs and each “case” is about half of that, making them, if not digestible,  short. They also generally employ repetition to an epic degree, making them perfect for someone who’s short term memory is approximately 90 seconds. Another for of television Grandma can appreciate is the game show. I don’t think she follows the game as much as she can appreciate the emotionally charged, overly gregarious behavior. It’s easy to know when to smile and laugh when there’s a studio audience giving you cues.

I haven’t watched any of these shows for years, but it’s fun to watch Grandma and my son laughing together over the Judge chewing out someone or Steve Harvey being Steve Harvey (who knew Family Feud was still on the air? I had no idea!). My feeling is that if in the few glimmers she has left she can laugh, then it’s going to be okay.