JOAN’S BLOG – MON/TUE., MAY 23/24, 2011 – AN ARTICLE THAT MADE ME ANGRY – OUR IRRATIONAL FEAR OF FORGETTING

The year was 1986. My husband had just received the biggest promotion of his career. He was put in charge of managing a Warehouse Store for his employer, Radio Shack. There were only a handful of these stores in the country, which were retail stores attached to one of the warehouse distribution centers for the company. It meant he was responsible for the ordering, maintenance, and sales of three different inventories. He was also the manager in charge of the retail Radio Shack store, and all that entailed – sales, employees, ordering – everything. He came home after his first day, and said, “I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew.”

He was wrong. In the 6 years he ran that operation, it became one of the most well run, lucrative stores in the Radio Shack chain. He thrived on the challenge and excitement of it all.

The year is 2011, and that same man cannot figure out if the dishes in the dishwasher are clean or dirty, because he cannot remember what the green light on the front of the dishwasher means. He cannot program the DVR, which consists of pressing two buttons. He, whose multi-tasking used to drive me crazy, sits confused when asked to do ONE task. He has lost a lot of the memories of our 41 years together.  This is what Alzheimer’s Disease has done to my husband. I do not know if it is worse for him to live with the disease or for me to watch him deteriorate from it.

I am highlighting the drastic changes in my husband now because of an article I read today that minimized Alzheimer’s Disease’s effects. It infuriated me.  Our Irrational Fear of Forgetting  was, in my opinion, a classic example of how poorly misunderstood Alzheimer’s Disease is. The basic theme is that we who worry about getting Alzheimer’s Disease, we who advocate for Alzheimer’s awareness, and doctors who diagnose Mild Cognitive Impairment, are alarmists. After all, according to the author, “Advocacy groups, manufacturers of so-called anti-aging products and the news media have, for varying reasons, tended to inflate the number of sufferers and the horrors of the condition.”  She goes on to say that “……….only 1 in 8 Americans older than 65 has Alzheimer’s….”, and that “The mind is capacious. Much mental and emotional ability can survive mere memory loss, as do other qualities that make us human.” 

I encourage you to read the entire article, so I cannot be accused of cherry picking “sound bites”.

My argument is with the ideas that only “1 in 8” Americans is an insignificant number; that we are “inflating” the horrors of the condition, and that “mere” memory loss is not such a big deal.

Anyone who thinks we are “inflating” the “horrors” of the condition, cannot possibly know what it is to lose one’s entire brain function – to regress from an adult to a helpless infant.

If Alzheimer’s Disease were “only” memory loss, which we know it is not, it would still be a destroyer of life and relationships. In my blogs and on the message boards, we have discussed how losing one’s memory affects one’s ability to think, learn, handle one’s own activities of daily living, find one’s way around, drive, handle money, and share past events with loved ones. To call memory loss “mere” is not only a disgrace, but a gross misunderstanding of what it means to life.

Does it really matter if those outside of the Alzheimer’s community understand the disease and its consequences on patient and caregiver? Should I not care what the author of the article thinks? Maybe it doesn’t matter, but in the Alzheimer’s Awareness Month Blog, I gave reasons why I think it does matter. Click here to read the full blog.

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