Monday, September 8, 2008
Health Minds. Healthy Lives.
This topic became interesting to me from experiences on a personal and professional level .I watched my mother take care of my grandfather as his mind deteriorate by this disease called Alzheimer's. It effected his mental personality capablities. His personality changed to a different person, he became aggessive, angry, loss of memory of everyone, and he would even walk out of the house without anyone knowing where to find him. This was hard to cope with. As a family, we made it by the grace of God. On a professional level there are many clients that I served who are in their early stage of this disease and Dementia. I have witness how families cope with their love one from these diseases. Erikson states that there are three aspects of personality that increase significantly: outgoingness, self- confidence, and warmth. On the other hand, Vaillant suggest that there are also two components: temperament and character. Vaillant states that temperament doesn't change, and adaptation in adolesence is one of the best predictors of adapation in late adulthood. Sadly, many of our elderly are reluctant to seek psychiatric treatment which could possibly cure or alleviate their symptons and level of functioning. America has the highest suicide rate among the elderly ranging from aged 65. Worldwide, elderly people lead the World Health Organization's list of new cases of mental illness. This topic has become very close to me. As I continue to research this topic, I hope that it becomes informative and helpful to those who may have a love one who suffers from this disorder or a client/consumer that you my come in contact with through your practice. I discovered informative information that explained causes and affects that contribute to this particular topic. It explained symptoms and percentile of victims. This information that I found is from American Psychiatric Association and Dimensions of Human Behavior by Elizabeth D. Hutchison. Stick around for the up coming blog post on Personality changes in Late Adulthood.
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4 comments:
Deidra I think this a great topic to discuss. There are so many adults going through personality changes;the distrubing thing is that many adults are having shifts in their personalities and they do not even know it. I have had personal experience with one of my family members that is going through this right now. What can you do? I agree with you one hundred percent that as a concerned family member we have to be their for them for moral support and refer them to any servies that may be needed to get them back on track.
Deidre, this is a really interesting topic. I had no idea that America had the highest suicide rate for people over 65. One of my neighbors, I'm pretty sure he was over 65, killed himself when he found out he might have cancer. I was surprised by this but, overall, I guess it's not that surprising, especially considering other factors in his life (he was elderly, sick and no family).
This is an excellent topic to explore. There is practically a case per quarter shown on the evening news where a person has wandered away from home for days. I have not experienced a family member having Alzheimer or dementia, but I did see my neighbors who were husband and wife battle this disease. Their children made a decision to allow them to remain in the home, and the adult children would one by one weekly take turns living in the home with parents. To care for parents or other love ones with one of these diagnoses has to be a huge undertaking. I look forward to seeing how this unfolds.
I saw a personality change gradually with my dad who died recently. He had already lived longer than any male member of his family going back 5 generations. Previously men on his side of the family died in their late 50's to early 60's primarily from diabetic complications. At 83 my father had suffered from cancer for 33 years had high blood pressure since he was 18 and had developed diabetes and congestive heart failure. This summer he under went hip replacement surgery which concerned me because 25% of hip replacements die in the first year for no apparent reason. With the onset of these chronic health issues, my father lost energy-physically and emotionally for just about everything in life. He became irritated at expressions of affection for him and even more irritated when asked about his health. He claimed the doctors and hospitals were just trying to get his $$$ and he declined more and more family involvement chosing to doze in a chair listening to the radio. This was so different from the Daddy I knew-laughing, teasing,incredibly smart, loving and comforting. He never lost his cognitive capacity and read Scientific American and The New Yorker magazines regularly as well as Nat. Geographic and Smithsonian. He managed his own financial affairs and even though he moved from PA to Wash. state to live with my sister, his friends and family continued to call and write which I always felt was a tribute to the quality of the friendship he gave. What happened to his personality was more emotional. I think he was angry at modern medical care for keeping him alive and perhaps he was trying to distance himself from the attachments that he had in this existance. At the end when I would talk to him I never knew what to say because he turned everything into talking about dying. I would say I love you Daddy and he would reply-"It(death) is inevitable." I would just answer-"I don't have to like it." In the end I suppose it made it easier to let him go. To ask him to try a pacemaker or some new treatment or doctor was getting to be hard as he was weary of going on. He missed my Mother everyday for 20 years so asking him to stay was really selfish. I understand the inevitability of my loss but I was right in that I am not liking it very much.
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