Free Concert for Dave

I went to a dementia lecture on diagnosis and treatment which was sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Association. The speaker was a doctor who specializes in the treatment of dementia. She had a lot of very good points as far as treatment went, but I think the one I agreed with her most on was not to over treat. For example, feeding tubes do not prolong life (and I cannot imagine anything more uncomfortable.)

Here’s the gist of the talk:
1. Go to the hospital or rehab as sparingly as possible. (Believe me, we GET that.)
2. Starvation means they are coming to the end of their disease. (That's selective verbiage. I guess most people don't like to see their parents as dying.)
3. The question of "when do you move them" came up. She said "when they’re ready for assisted living. Otherwise, what's the point?" I guess the point in our case for going to independent living was so he could get meals made for him. Some people will cook for themselves, but I think Dad never was that self sufficient.
4. Don't overtreat. She said sleep aids like Ambien and Tylenol PM hamper memory. All us caregivers stared at each other over that one. We all like these on occasion.

Saturday I went to the Memory Walk at the Dallas Zoo. I had raised $375 for research and THANK YOU to all who contributed.

On Sunday Julie and I went over to Dad’s to give him a little concert of the duets we’ve been working on. At first I think he was afraid of Julie and started wheeling himself away from us and out of the living room. Dad gets it in his head that strangers are terrorists. I see more and more why the news is never on in these facilities. It just gets the tenants riled up. So one of the other daughters rolled him back to where we were seated. As we played, Dad became agitated, trying to pull the arm off his wheelchair and thrashing his other hand into the couch I was sitting on while playing. I finally said, “Dad, could you please stop slamming yourself into the couch?” It went on for another ten minutes. The music, being baroque, tends to put people to sleep. But not this crowd. One of the other residents came up and said, “So START why don’t ya??!” and “You’re losing your audience! So start why doncha?” in a thick Brooklyn accent. She couldn’t hear or see that we’d been at it for twenty minutes. What I find is that it’s taboo to have a belly laugh over this stuff, but I simply couldn’t help it. We’re always supposed to be on guard not to offend the residents, but it’s a pretty bizarre environment. One little drama queen became freaked out when she thought no one would come back to paint her nails. This went on for five or ten minutes, and Julie and I were still holding it together musically. Once we got to “Ode to Joy” I asked, “Are any of you Beethoven fans?” Dead silence. One of the caregivers finally said, “Not anymore.” She’s pretty OK with not requiring the “correct” level of seriousness, gloom, and pretence of normalcy that most family members seem to be able to keep up. The only resident that could hear us was Dad, and he was busy tearing the arm off the couch.

Julie and I left once dinner was served, and we both agreed this was an excellent place to practice. For one thing, there’s constant distraction, so it forces you to go above and beyond with focusing on the music and each other (as is a must for playing duets.) Secondly, there’s zero need for self-consciousness. If you blow five bars of music or forget to sharpen an F, no one catches it. This way we can work up to more discerning crowds. Julie, as usual, sounded like a symphonic player, which she used to be.