JOAN’S BLOG – WED/THUR. SEPTEMBER 9/10, 2009 – SLOOOOOOW MOTION

So many of my blogs start by me saying that I should not be surprised by an event or experience related to Alzheimer’s Disease. I know about it; I expect it; I have waited for it, yet I AM either surprised, exasperated by it, or both. And so it is the case once more with my husband’s rapidly ( pun intended?) decreasing mental processing speed, which affects both verbal responses and physical movement.

“What would you like for lunch?’, I ask. Five minutes later, there is still a blank look on his face. “Why don’t you answer me?”, I ask. “I’m thinking,” he responds. If I leave him alone for another 10 minutes, he will have forgotten I even asked the question.

“Do you want to go to the pool?  Do you like these stools for the kitchen counter? What is on TV?”  It does not matter what the question is. His ability to take in the information, process it, and answer it, has slowed to a crawl.

Physically, it is the same. He takes care of all of his own ADL’s( (dressing, showering, shaving, etc.), but I need to give him an extra hour to complete all of those tasks. It is as if the brain signals to his hands, legs, and feet have been set on slow motion. Once he gets going, I do know that part of his physical sluggishness is due to his diabetes, arthritis, and poor stamina.

None of this is his fault. It should not bother me. I, after all, spent my entire professional life dealing with students whose processing was on turtle speed. I am the one who used to train teachers to ask a question of these students, and instead of demanding an immediate answer, tell them they could think about it for awhile, and the teacher would come back to them in 10 minutes. You would think that I could apply that lesson to my own husband, and give him the time he needs to think and respond. Unfortunately, the turtle speed is DRIVING ME CRAZY. My patience is not good, to say the least. Neither is my patience for myself. Every time I lose my temper when I have to wait what seems to me an interminable amount of time for him to move, make a statement, or answer a question, I get angry with myself as well as him.

Eventually, as with all of the AD symptoms – the repetitive questions, his repetitious statements, the 60 second forget time – I will accept and adjust, but right now I am having a tough time with the sloooooooooow motion.

What about you? Are your spouses living in a slow motion world, while you are on warp speed? Do you have more patience than I?  Message Board Topic: Joan’s Wed. Blog – Slooow Motion

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The Alzheimer Spouse LLC
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