DISABILITIES

By Daniel J. Vance

The Alzheimer's Disease Education and Referral Center web site defines Alzheimer's disease as "the most common form of dementia among older people," affecting the areas of the brain handling thought, language, and memory. Often the first symptom is mild forgetfulness. Perhaps four million Americans have Alzheimer's disease.

Marcia Pelishek, a 57-year-old dairy farmer from Pulaski, Wisconsin, and reader of this column in the Green Bay Press Gazette, has been trying to cope with her mother's Alzheimer's disease. "I was doing excellent (emotionally) until last week when reality began setting in," she said in a telephone interview. "It has become hard for my mother to carry on a conversation. She now lives on an Alzheimer's unit of a nursing home."

Her mother had already been showing mild symptoms four years ago when a stroke complicated matters by also making her hard of hearing and blind in both eyes. "My mother had a severe headache that weekend," she said of the stroke. "She didn't see a doctor and didn't tell me what had happened until Monday. I got her in to an eye specialist, but by then she had lost 95 percent of her sight. Today, she can't even see light or dark. If you get by her ear and talk at a certain tone she can hear you, though."

It wasn't until a few years before the stroke that she and her mom actually began having a close personal relationship. This has made the current situation for Pelishek especially difficult. And her mother's blindness has been a mixed blessing, she said. It has been good in the sense that she can't physically wander away from the nursing home.

Pelishek said, "I was at the nursing home just today and my mother is starting to show a few more signs of slowing down. The disease is progressing. She is getting to where she is less emphatic about life. She still recognizes us, but not in the capacity she did six months ago."

For people in similar situations with loved ones, she suggested they learn everything possible about the disease. "Talk to people that have these problems," she said. "I recently called my local Alzheimer's association and we're going to be working one-on-one with them. That will help me."

She credited her husband as the "rock of Gibralter" she needs to get through.

For more, see www.danieljvance.com or www.alzheimers.org