Life Nearby: If Your Loved Ones Get Dementia - Reviews

Life is near. How to help loved ones with dementia and how to help yourself.

M.: Nikeya, 2016. The famous psychiatrist and neurologist Vladimir Bekhterev believed that only 20% of people would be able to live out their old age, keeping their minds. There are 47.5 million people with dementia worldwide, and another 7.7 million are added each year.

Dementia is a violation of cognitive abilities: to think, remember, count, recognize people and objects. In its external manifestations, the disease is closely associated with emotional (depression, apathy) and behavioral (nighttime awakening, loss of hygiene skills) disorders. The patient's behavior changes, the range of emotions becomes scarce, the person degrades as a person.

The book is intended primarily for those who care for dementia patients. But sooner or later we all may face such a situation, which means that it will be useful for all of us to read the book

The problem is viewed from three sides: medical, psychological and spiritual. Gerontopsychiatrist Maria Gantman will tell you how to cope with the manifestations of dementia: delusions, hallucinations, irritability, suspicion; psychologist Zhanna Sergeeva will give recommendations on how to save your strength and where to find support; Archpriest Mikhail Braverman will tell about the Christian attitude to old age.

It is easy for a person caring for a person with dementia to lose their identity if they do not have information about what is happening to their loved ones and to themselves. This is exactly the kind of knowledge you can get by reading this book. This will preserve your health and maintain love for the patient.

Anyone who is faced with the need to care for a dementia patient experiences similar feelings. At first, relatives are surprised and frightened by changes in the behavior of an elderly person. This fear makes you deny the illness and waste time. Nervous exhaustion, loss of strength, feelings of guilt and unbearable burden - all these are difficult experiences for the patient's relatives. Instead of your loved one, a stranger appears next to you - forgetful, grumpy, untidy. This stranger gradually drives out your dad or mom, you experience a sense of loss long before the death of a relative. “White mourning” reigns in the family - when a person is alive, but the inner farewell to him has already happened.

Very often families become isolated in their trouble, they are ashamed of a sick relative. But it is those around you - friends, volunteers, colleagues - who can provide the necessary support. Caring for a person with dementia is hard, exhausting work and does not have to be taken alone.