How to Keep Alzheimer ’s From Bringing About the Zombie Apocalypse

I tried to kill my father for years. To be fair, I was following his wishes. He’d made it clear that when he no longer recognized me, when he could no longer talk, when the nurses started treating him like a toddler, he didn’t want to live any longer. My father was 58 years old when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He took the diagnosis with the self-deprecating humor he’d spent a lifetime cultivating, constantly cracking jokes about how he would one day turn into a zombie, a walking corpse. We had a good 10 years with him after the diagnosis. Eventually, his jokes came true. Seven years before he died, he forgot my name. Three years before his death, he forgot my mother’s existence. His speech devolved into word salad. “Honey, garbage bag synopsis toothbrush Bella potato beetle?” he asked. I replied as though I had understood: “Yes, Gray.” I had taken to calling him by his childhood nickname. He didn’t respond to “Dad”; he no longer realized he was a father. He started peeing on the plastic plants in his facility, and in other inappropriate places. The nurses dressed him in diapers and a onesie. Sleep eluded him; when he slept at all, it would be on the nearest couch. He could no longer distinguish his room from others. With no pattern I could discern, he would hit me and hit his nurses. He would attack the walls. In his final months, it took a team of nurses and aides to change him out of his...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Alzheimer's Disease Source Type: news