Exercise. Eat your vegetables. Get your rest. We’ve heard these health mantras all our lives, from parents, teachers, doctors, and even the media. There’s a reason why these messages persist— they speak the truth and are critical to helping us sustain healthy bodies and minds.
Continue reading Alzheimer’s: What Diet Should Alzheimer’s Patient Eat?
GETTING YOUR EXERCISE
For years, you’ve heard about the virtues of regular exercise—how it maintains weight, staves off cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other illnesses, and helps maintain muscle strength and aerobic capacity. Research suggests that exercise also has protective benefits for the brain and can help stave off problems such as dementia.
Continue reading Alzheimer’s: Physical Activity for Alzheimer’s
Enjoying a good night’s sleep may be easier said than done for the person who has early Alzheimer’s. Disruptions in sleep are a result of changes in the sleep-wake cycle, which is regulated by the brain. They may also be caused by medications, other medical conditions such as depression, or a bad sleep environment.
If you have high cholesterol, you have the choice of several different medications to lower your cholesterol. If you have diabetes, you can choose from a modest list of drugs to tame your blood glucose control. But if you have Alzheimer’s disease, your treatment options are limited to only five medications at this time.
Continue reading Alzheimer’s: Other Medication Alzheimer’s May Take
In people who have Alzheimer’s, sleep disturbances are common. You may have trouble getting to sleep or wake up frequently in the middle of the night. You may awaken earlier than you should. As the disease progresses, the lack of sleep can cause uncontrollable resdessness, and some people may begin to wander. Sleep problems may be exacerbated if you also suffer from depression, restless leg syndrome (an uncontrollable urge to move your legs move at night), or sleep apnea (an abnormal breathing pattern that causes you to stop breathing many times a night). As a result, you may wind up sleeping more than usual or not getting enough sleep.
Continue reading Alzheimer’s: Sleep Remedies for Alzheimer’s
Few tasks in life are as difficult as that of becoming a caregiver for someone with Alzheimer’s. Early on, the job may be mentally exhausting as you struggle to come to terms with the disease, learn to accept your loved one’s cognitive decline, and start to juggle the day-to-day logistics of how you will care for this person. As the disease progresses, you may take on more financial and legal responsibilities as well. Gradually, caregiving becomes more physically taxing as your loved one’s own physical abilities diminish and his cognitive skills erode even further.
Taken correctly, medications can help make it easier for you to live with Alzheimer’s disease or any health condition for that matter. But taking medications of any kind should always be done with caution and under a doctor’s supervision.
Some people instinctively know how to be better caregivers. They know to read up on the disease, to make time for themselves, to seek help and support from every available resource. They do not burden themselves with guilt over taking time to exercise. They make sure to get enough sleep. And they continue making and keeping their own medical appointments, even as they take loved ones to theirs.
Continue reading Alzheimer’s: Caregivers Should Take Care of Themselves
Although caregiving is not necessarily a cause of depression nor a guarantee that you will become depressed, it is not at all unusual for caregivers to become mild or moderately depressed. The fatigue, exhaustion, and demands associated with caregiving can leave even the most resilient person feeling sad.
THE PHYSICAL IMPACT
Imagine a job that had no vacations and no coffee breaks, a job where you worked alone most of the time and in which you worked twenty-four hours a day. Now imagine that the job gave you total and complete responsibility for the health, safety, and well-being of another person, someone you love and whose personality has morphed into someone you no longer recognize. It’s no wonder then, that caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s takes such a toll on the caregiver’s health.
Continue reading Alzheimer’s: Physical and Emotional Toll on the Care Giver