On June 15th 2010, I posted a blog article entitled, Scene of the Mind: An Out of Control Slideshow? The article was the result of a discussion I had with one of our family members who had yet to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease but was displaying many of the symptoms.
Our family member was attempting to describe to me what they were visually experiencing when the AD symptoms seemed to strike.
An out-of-control slide show was how this person described it. For example, on one occasion they might be looking at their pet cat. Then, without warning, the color of the cat’s fur might fade to shades of gray: right as they were watching. Or, instead of it’s fur color fading to gray, the shape of the cat changes or alters slightly as it is being looked at.
Another example provided was what happened to the appearance of someone while watching them.
While conversing, say with an old friend or neighbor, the facial features of the person being spoken to suddenly become those of someone else, someone unknown, or perhaps something that doesn’t resemble a person at all, in addition to fading to gray or becoming shadow-like.
How scary would this all be to any of us? How would anyone be able to make sense out of this shifting or changing of features of a person, an animal or place right in front of us?
All fear and emotion put aside for a moment, this hallucinating, nightmare-like visual experience may represent one of the unspoken, unarticulated facets of how AD also disrupts the brains’ ability to correctly process and feedback visual imagery, as well as other tactile and sensory data.
After all, AD does not offer immunity nor does it spare any particular set of brain circuitry pathways upon its’ fatal march. Therefore, what you see, what you hear, what you touch, what you taste, and, what you feel are all sensory experiences that are going to be degraded and altered by Alzheimer’s.
Much has been written about the unpredictable and inappropriate behaviors that AD patients display. On the other hand, I have not seen much of anything offered up that attempts to communicate in words what the frightening , morphing visual experience feels like to the AD sufferer.
How is one’s sense of smell scrambled, confused or snuffed out?
How does it affect your tactile skills such as touch, your sense of heat, your sense of cold? And how about your hearing?
How would you react to a car driving by that now sounds like your hair dryer?
What would you make of the sound of your very own footsteps across the hardwood floor of your family room now sounding like water boiling in a pan on the stove?
When you take into consideration how all of our brains’ functions and operations are knocked askew by AD, is it any wonder that people would be experiencing the kinds of things noted above?
How would you handle being stuck inside of an out-of-control slide show of dark shadows, changing faces, weird smells and bizarre sounds? Not very well.
Living with AD is a lot more disturbing and frightful than what we have considered up to now.
Time to become a little more compassionate, a little more understanding, a little more empathetic when we see the fearful looks, the puzzled expressions or even blank stares upon the faces of our AD patients and loved ones.
They didn’t ask Santa for this gift nor was it delivered by any reindeer.
Jeff Dodson
December 13th 2011
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