I think it did a slightly better job than some of the other shows I have seen in explaining the EMOTIONAL effect on caregivers, and that it is a BRAIN disease, not just a fading memory disease. But only a slightly better job.
Last year, I spoke with Lisa Gywther- she is very aware of this website, and she co-authored another book with Patrick Toal from the Caregiver Cruises. I am going to call her to discuss doing a project on educating people about what Alzheimer's Disease really is and its effects on spouses.
I also attended a conference last year at which Dr.Tanzi spoke. He is a brilliant man, and he actually was able to explain the science so I almost understood most of it.
I agree with Joan too. It did show some of what was going on, and the frustrations of the caregivers. But it was trying to do such a huge overview of the disease, all of its types, that it would have been impossible to have done a thorough job on any of the aspects.
But at least there weren't any glaring holes in the coverage. The three women patients who were shown were pretty good examples of the reality, in my opinion. The grandmother who is actually "younger" than her 4 year old grandson. The mother sleeping and unable to even wake up when her daughters were there. The sister who was totally out of it, and still strong enough to do physical harm to her brother and sister. In none of these cases was there any "cute" not remembering stuff.
And you did see the absolute misery of one of the men who's wife was in that bed "sleeping" away her life. And that they had made one of the hard decisions not to treat her pneumonia once it arrived AND that one of the daughters had begun to pray for pneumonia. They obviously hadn't made any of the other hard decisions because the husband could not deal with her no longer being there.
Still, one of the things that is needed is a program FOCUSING on caregiving and what it actually involves and what happens to the caregiver at various stages of the disease. All of the focus is on the patient, and although that sounds realistic - they are the ones who are sick - the fact that BOTH of the caregivers died FIRST ought to make it obvious that there needs to be more focus on the hidden victums of this disease, including the children and grandchildren.
I couldn't get it in the DC/Virginia area either. The website indicated it would be on PBS channel 26, but just got Masterpiece Theatre. I was really bummed as I was anxious to see it.
It's almost like if the general populace ignores it AD will go away. No one I know watched the program. There was no hype about it and if Joan hadn't memtioned it I would have missed it.
bluedaze that is how the "general populace" felt about cancer and heart disease up until a decade or so ago. Things change when people are ready for it to change.
I think that this is the decade when dementia of all kinds come out of the closet. And one of the problems is that there is this tendency for the public to think there is only one kind. Calling all dementia Alzheimer's bothers me. I'm not sure if it is the right way to go or not.
Starling I agree that it is a disservice calling all dementia AD. It is that type of thinking that allows our less than ideal doctors to continue using a cookie cutter approach to treating AD.
Actually it was advertised pretty well on some of the other channels. We have digital and usually watch the History Channel, the Science Channel and National Geographic and some others mostly news stuff. Anyway, my clients don't know my situation but twice today 2 clients openly talked about the AD program on PBS last night.
I agree with Starling 100% a great show would be to focus on, and tell the story of the caregiver!!