Friday, January 08, 2010

Rising Tide


I keep thinking about the nine or ten people I visited leading up to Christmas who are living with various aspects of dementia. Some are simply not able to recognize even those they have loved for a lifetime, nor can they carry out basic functions. Others give the appearance of normalcy and can carry on a lively conversation until they begin to repeat what they said only a few minutes before.

In one of the private nursings homes we have three elderly women, all with dementia, only one of whom is aware of her affliction. One of the others tells me anxiously, over and over, about the tragic death of her sister as though it happened recently. It was decades ago.

I have admitted before that I sometimes wonder about the point of these visits. I read the Christmas story and prayed with the individuals, but what do they comprehend? I am no saint when it comes to this, yet in the end I have a deep feeling that each of them deserves to be treated as a human being loved by God, not as a shell from which the soul has departed.

A few days ago we heard reports about a new study called Rising Tide --The Impact of Alzheimer's on Canadian Society which offers a grim picture of growing numbers of those affected by this disease and other forms of dementia. It is one of the realities of longevity. Our healthcare system allows people to live longer but not necessarily better. Every five minutes someone in Canada develops dementia. http://www.alzheimer.ca/english/newsevents/awareness.htm

I hope that the church in its various expressions can find the ways to offer solace and support to both those who are ill and those who provide care.I wonder what this ministry will look like and who will provide it with many mainline churches becoming oldline and shrinking. I suppose we hope and pray that God will be in the midst of this.

3 comments:

roger said...

I can well understand your concern about your visits with these people. You can only hope that they(and their families) do benefit from your visits.

A few years ago I did some volunteering with an organization in Toronto which helps mentally and physically challenged people.

My intention was to help put a little joy in people's lives. Although I had a close connection with some, there were others whose conditions were so severe that I wondered if they even knew what was happening.

I found myself having deep, philosophical conversations with myself on that one hour drive back home each week. Was I doing any good? Were those who were most seriously afflicted getting anything out of this?

Ultimately, we do what we can to help others in ways that we are able. We do this in the hope that we are making a difference...even in a small way.

It beats sitting at home watching another "Survivor" episode!
(Sorry, had to throw that in...I was getting a little too serious for so early in the morning).

Laura said...

I can attest to the families sense of being cared for,supported and loved when our loved ones are visited, remembered in prayer, and inquired about by clergy and church family. This support helps us to keep going in our caregiving, and in some way validates our own sense that our own visits are indeed still important to our loved one,and affirms that Mom is still loved and alive and needed in God's eyes, and our own.

My parents, as many seniors do, left a well established life elsewhere, to move closer to family support when dimentia was diagnosed. Many others will loose their support network to age and illness and lack of understanding of the disease.

How wonderful when a church family becomes part of the support network at this stage,as St Paul's has for Dad and Mom (and me).

Truly I know this journey would have been much darker, and less hopeful without a cast of church friends who have held us up.

Yes, I do wonder where the support beyond the medical and daily life care will come from for future generations. Caring for the spirit of the caregiver is an integral part of moving past just surviving Alzheimer's experience but somehow still finding meaning and joy amidst the exhaustion and loss and lonliness that caregivers (especially primary caregivers) experience.
Clergy caring for the spirit of the afflicted, often with little or no response from the patient, still honours the value of the Alzheimer's patient's life, past and present, and in some way must make them feel just a little less isolated.

David Mundy said...

Sometimes the comments are more worthwhile than the original blog. Thanks to both of you.