Travel Well with Dementia - Essential Tips to Enjoy the Journey

Travel Well with Dementia - Essential Tips to Enjoy the Journey

von: Jan Dougherty

BookBaby, 2019

ISBN: 9781543993110

Sprache: Englisch

218 Seiten, Download: 10055 KB

 
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Travel Well with Dementia - Essential Tips to Enjoy the Journey



Chapter 1

10 Tips for Understanding Dementia Before Travel Begins

Well planned and informed travel always makes for the best trip. Adding dementia into the planning process will change many aspects of travel for both the person with dementia and the family caregiver or travel companion.

In the following chapter, you will find many precautions to consider. This is not meant to discourage travel or to create fear. Rather, the goal is to show you that, with careful assessment and comprehensive plans in place, you can ensure the intended travel is successful. Too often, when families and friends have not considered or planned for the added stressors, frustration is the result, and travel is forever ended. While there will come an eventual end to travel for most of us, the goal here is to help you to create a better and more memorable experience.

TIP #1: Dementia is an umbrella term that describes a number of conditions affecting a person’s memory and thinking skills and will ultimately impair their ability to live independently

Think of dementia like cancer – it is not a specific diagnosis. When we learn that someone has a cancer diagnosis, we ask, “what type?” The question reflects the fact that, for most of us, all we know about cancer is that abnormal cells are growing somewhere in the body. Without a specific diagnosis, appropriate treatment cannot be given, and we can’t help the person who has been diagnosed to plan for the future.

The same thing applies to dementia. It is not a specific diagnosis and doesn’t lend itself to providing the more detailed information necessary to help the person and their family live their best. There are many different types of dementias, each with differing symptoms and treatments that can also vary according to the type of dementia.

When symptoms of dementia begin to show, it is critically important to get a specific diagnosis such as Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, or one of the many other forms of the illness. The specific diagnosis will guide individuals living with dementia – and their family members – to learn more about the condition, including treatment options. It also aids individuals to plan for the future and learn strategies to enhance daily life.

Unfortunately, almost half of people living with symptoms of dementia will never get a diagnosis. Many affected individuals are aware of changes in memory and thinking and are embarrassed by them. However, many of these individuals won’t report the changes to a family member or physician for fear of hearing the words “dementia” or “Alzheimer’s.”

Others living with symptoms will have no insight into their losses. They are not in denial; rather they simply cannot see the difficulties they are having. This is often very frustrating to families who try to point out the changes and get the person to the doctor for a diagnosis.

TIP #2: Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, but there are many more

Alzheimer’s disease accounts for 60-80% of all dementias. Symptoms come on slowly, usually over a period of months to years. People affected begin to first show changes in short-term memory abilities since the memory portion of the brain (the hippocampus) is no longer processing and storing information as in the past. New information is readily lost – but remember, it is not because the person is willfully forgetting. In essence, the brain’s ‘save’ button is broken and new information gets deleted.

Over time, this pattern of forgetfulness begins to interfere with everyday life. Families observe that the person is having more difficulty with common tasks such as managing money and finances, making meals, or attending to household affairs. For those who are still working, work-related tasks take longer to complete, and mistakes happen more often.

Families often voice frustrations that their person is repeatedly asking the same question or telling a familiar story yet again. The affected person will begin misplacing or losing things, often blaming the family for these missing items. Mood can be impacted, as some people become more irritable while others become more passive or withdrawn. The Alzheimer’s Association (www.alz.org) provides detailed information about the condition along with many other valuable resources for affected people and family caregivers (please see the Resources section, at the end of this book, for more information).

Vascular dementia is the second most common type of dementia, resulting from small strokes or changes in the small blood vessels in the brain. About 10% of the population will have vascular dementia, often accompanied by a history of high blood pressure, diabetes or another vascular disease.

Symptoms may appear similar to Alzheimer’s disease since short-term memory can be affected. However, sometimes the damage occurs in another part of the brain and the person can become confused and disoriented. There may be trouble speaking or understanding language, and some may report vision loss. These symptoms can often also indicate a stroke has occurred.

Stroke-related changes can make the onset of vascular dementia seem more sudden. Yet, over time, changes may have been occurring in the small blood vessels in the brain, causing aspects of impaired thinking to accumulate. Difficulty with planning and problem-solving, sometimes resulting in poor judgment, will begin to appear. You may also witness difficulty paying attention and trouble with word-finding.

Recent brain studies show that vascular dementia often co-occurs with other dementias, including Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy Body Dementia. In these cases, the dementia is often referred to as mixed dementia. For more information, please visit www.alz.org.

Lewy Body Dementia is the third most common type of dementia, with symptoms that look like both Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. While memory issues appear to be milder than in Alzheimer’s, the person will develop features of Parkinson’s such as hunched posture, shuffling walk, and more rigid movements.

What is strikingly different about Lewy Body Dementia is the variability in daily function resulting in changes in alertness and confusion. Changes in thinking and reasoning can vacillate from one day to another or even at various times throughout the day. Visual hallucinations, such as seeing people or animals, are very common and are real to the person. Some develop false beliefs (also referred to as delusions) that are simply untrue but seem very true and real to the person. There can be a history of sleep problems, such as REM sleep disorder, that can result in acting out on bad dreams.

These individuals are very sensitive to certain medications. Finally, some will have extreme changes in blood pressure, are prone to constipation, dry eyes, and even sudden falls. For more information, connect with the Lewy Body Dementia Association, www.lbda.org.

Frontotemporal Degeneration (FTD) results from diseases striking either the frontal or temporal lobes of the brain. These disorders are more commonly seen in people between the ages of 40 and 70.

The frontal lobe is often referred to as the “executive center” of the brain. This thinking part of the brain is essential for decision making and appropriate social behavior. When an illness attacks the frontal lobe, the first symptoms usually involve changes in personality, judgment, planning, and social functioning. For example, the person may begin making rude or inappropriate remarks to family or strangers. There are often very poor decisions related to financial or personal matters. They are also more prone to obsessive-compulsive behaviors such as overeating, gambling, or pornography, just to name a few. This frontal lobe presentation is also referred to as “behavioral variant FTD.”

For some, the disease will strike the temporal region of the brain. This part of the brain is important for language; thus, problems with language may be among the first symptoms to appear. This can result in the person having difficulty completing sentences or having severe word-finding trouble. For others, it will become impossible to fully understand what is being said. For more detailed information about FTD, visit www.theaftd.org.

TIP #3: Dementias are progressive

Each of the dementias described above is progressive in nature. This means abilities, including memory, thinking, language, function, and mood, will continue to change, typically over a period of months to eight or ten years.

It is often difficult to predict the overall length of the illness, as it varies greatly in affected people. A good rule of thumb is to look back at the differences you’ve observed over a 12-month period. The rate of change(s) observed during that time will often predict the rate of change you can expect in the coming year.

TIP #4: There are three stages associated with dementia: mild, moderate and advanced

Most dementia experts (physicians, nurses, social workers, and others) often talk about “stages” of dementia. The stages are usually...

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