[/caption]Carol Forsloff - The 94-year-old, still-beautiful woman exclaimed, “Just look at those trees God made. Don’t we have much to be grateful for?” as she spent the next hour encapsulating in a few words the science of memory and the recipe for living in a wise way that reveals the dimensions of intellect along with the layers of Alzheimer’s disease.
90% of Alzheimer’s disease patients have the sporadic form of the disease. A recent study, however, showed that brains of mice injected with tissue from a human with Alzheimer's had changes characteristic of the disease. Researchers tell us that means some cases of Alzheimer's may spread from person to person in a similar fashion as "mad cow" disease. So does this mean we should fear touching or being around an Alzheimer patient? Doctors who have addressed these concerns, following the research, maintain that has not and would not be a concern, despite the new finding, as there have not been the family patterns of the disease following the diagnosis of a given family member.
Alzheimer’s disease is dreaded as the disease that wears down the mind and the body incrementally. Scientists tell us that like other diseases, how Alzheimer’s disease is manifested depends on a number of factors that include overall health, social interaction, stimulation, and diet. This means the face of Alzheimer’s disease is different for each person, and an experience different than others with the same diagnosis.
Martha, whose name is changed to guard her privacy and that of her family, lives in a care facility. She is locked on the floor of an institution that was converted years ago to specifically help aging seniors with cognitive problems. The locks prevent the wandering but also provide security for the family in knowing that a loved one is physically safe in a facility where special needs are met by trained personnel. The standards of care provide for these secure measures as well as assisted living services that are individualized depending on the special needs of each patient.
I knew Martha many years ago. As the former wife of one of her sons, I saw her during occasional visits at our home and hers, in large and small groups, with crowds of people and during one-to-one intimate conversations. She was much admired by family and friends for her intelligence, creativity and caring of others. She loved ideas, preferring educated people for conversation, and definitely had her own set of notions, not always the kind a daughter-in-law of youth and inexperience would want to hear. She gave her advice freely and not always with the kind words that allow reprimand to be appreciated. I had not seen Martha for more than 35 years. She has changed, but the essential Martha remains; and it is an essential that reveals how science and faith combine to give insight into Alzheimer’s disease.
"Memories are like a series of phonograph records," Martha voluntarily explained as we recounted past events where we had been together years ago. “I sometimes don’t remember things, and then suddenly something happens, and an idea comes up unexpectedly. Or I can just be sitting someplace and remember someone or something out of the past. It’s just like those records of a juke box, one at a time in turn, playing something familiar; but you never know which one is going to play next.”
A documentary called The Memory Tapes by Shari Cookson and Nick Doob outlines the unusual nature of Alzheimer’s disease. “We wanted to capture a sense of what it was to be inside the disease," explains Shari Cookson. "Our plan was to show the progression of the illness through several stories along the way." But as Nick Doob points out: "There's nothing clear cut about it. The course of the disease is different from person to person." Adds Cookson: "They say if you've seen one person with Alzheimer's... you've seen one person with Alzheimer's."
Martha is one person with Alzheimer’s disease. She explains in clear and well-considered tones how her memory works and how grateful she is for the simple pleasures of living such as the beauty of the trees in an environment where she can no longer walk freely but can still enjoy the vision of “what God has made,” as a lesson of true spiritual value for the rest of us.
