“Alzheimer’s patients are mirrors which reflect their caregivers”?

 A medical specialist for Alzheimer’s disease wrote “Alzheimer’s patients are mirrors which reflect their caregivers” in his book. It means if a caregiver yells at or punches a patient, the patient also starts to yell or punch people. If caregivers treat patients gently, the patient treat other people gently.

 I found out about the theory by myself. It is easy to imagine if you assume you have Alzheimer’s disease. The patients basically always cause trouble. They do things which make people mad, but they can’t remember what they have done. From the patients’ point of view, people start to yell or punch you without any reason. Closer people attack you more aggressively. It is pure hell. You need to protect yourself. You need to start to yell or punch people.

 But I don’t want to insist on this theory strongly, because every patient is an individual. First of all, there are naturally aggressive or violent people. If these people became patients, they might keep yelling and punching all the time. Furthermore, atrophying of brains varies with individuals. Even if all caregivers treat patients nicely, there might be aggressive or violent patients.

 Even if this theory is correct, I don’t want to blame the caregivers. They sacrifice themselves to give care. Family members in particular need to spend a long time caring for patients. Taking care of those with Alzheimer’s disease is very stressful. It is almost impossible to spend a long time with a patient without feeling any anger. Caregivers naturally tend to experience crises that to make them mad. But they are basically good people. They love the patients, which is why they started to take care of them.

If I found a patient who always yelled and punched people, I would not be comfortable blaming the caregivers:

 “He or she behaves like this because you abused him or her!”

 Because of luck or because of the good quality of our care, my mother behaves gently. Ten years ago my mother and I yelled at each other every day. But I quit yelling at her when a doctor diagnosed her as having Alzheimer’s disease. I have never yelled at her since the diagnosis. But there were tons of times when I wanted to yell and punch her. Even now, I sometimes face such crises.

 My wife started to live with my mother three years ago. Last month when my mother and my wife were at home just the two of them, my mother tried to do terrible a thing in front of my wife. So my wife yelled at my mother. That was the first time she had done that. My mother yelled back at her immediately. My wife was very surprised because usually my mother is so calm.

 “The mirror theory” could be correct, at least in our home.

 The theory is simple, but applying it is very hard.

 

Picture by photo2465