When “confusion is baseline”
Too many people know exactly what it feels like to lose their minds. That's because it's actually happening to them. While most people with dementia are no longer capable of describing their circumstances very well, its effects are debilitating and distressing to themselves and to others. The prospect of senility is indeed frightening, and these days it's common to hear people say they fear Alzheimer's more than death.
Ralph Klein is the most recent public figure to reveal his personal struggle with dementia, a loss of brain function that affects memory, thinking, language, judgment and behaviour. At 68 years of age, the former premier of Alberta was diagnosed with "frontal temporal dementia, consistent with primary progressive aphasia." This means he can expect his speech and comprehension capabilities to continue to deteriorate fairly rapidly, and his ability to access his memories is likely soon to fade as well.
This is sad. It is sad for that family that sees the quick-witted man they knew and loved drift inexorably away on a flotilla of dying neurons. It's difficult for his former colleagues to imagine the burden of care that now surrounds such a carefree soul. Even his political enemies and numerous detractors will be subdued. The diagnosis brings joy to no one.
Rising tide
Even more sadly, Klein is not alone. A study released by the Alzheimer Society last year trumpets the alarm about a scourge set to impact increasing numbers of Canadians. Rising Tide: The Impact of Dementia on Canadian Society notes that a half million Canadians currently live with Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. And that number is expected to more than double within a generation.
The costs of caring for the victims of this affliction are also mounting. According to the study, nearly three per cent of the Canadian population will have dementia by 2038. By then the cumulative economic burden will be $872 billion and demand for long-term care will increase 10-fold.
While governments and various care facilities attempt to prepare for this tide of need, much of actual day-to-day care will devolve to family and friends. The number of hours of informal care that will be required is headed for the stratosphere. It's fair to ask how well people steeped in the essentially selfish patterns of living our culture encourages will do when it comes to providing meaningful care for their elders?
All this is complicated, of course, by the dramatically varying effects of dementia that different people experience. Some will drift benignly through their sunset years on the waves of pleasant confusion. Their memories will be intermittent and unreliable, sublimely detached from their current circumstances. Ignorance can be bliss.
Others, however, will experience each new moment as a new torment they cannot put into perspective. Some people will turn disruptive and violent, often in ways entirely out of character with their previous patterns of personal conduct. Alzheimer's, it's said, is a thief who grows bolder as months pass.
Christian response
Christian caregivers cannot withdraw from these challenges. We must continue to be active, a steadfast and loving presence among those who are no longer able to process their own experiences and memories. We must find creative and encouraging ways to communicate the enduring hope that God values every human being. What a positive and powerful message we send when we maintain care and respect for people who demand so much and appear to offer so little. We need to realize that while the flesh may deteriorate, the spirit is still alive.
Indeed, though the physical brain may be dying, a person's spiritual sensitivities could very well be expanding. It is sometimes possible to glimpse this human reality in momentary fragments while providing care. God does not abandon people, and neither should his followers - even when confusion is baseline.
Ralph Klein's mind may be drifting into a disturbing sea of disorder and forgetfulness far removed from the astute and acerbic persona of his past. I wish him a peaceful voyage surrounded by love, good friends and a culture of care. At the end stages of life, we discover that these are the things that really matter.
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