Who, you might ask, is Lewy?

The short and sweet answer is that Dr. Lewy and Dr. Alzheimer were working together when Dr. A found the tangles in the brain cells which are characteristic of the symptoms we know of as Alzeheimer's Disease. Dr. Lewy identified a second type of dementia, characterized by structures in the brain cells which are now known as Lewy Bodies. Dementia with Lewy Bodies is a lot like Alzheimers, but symptoms come and go, become more intense and less so, from day to day and sometimes from hour to hour. (Can I say minute to minute?) It is the third most common type of dementia.

Not sure where this adventure will take us, but my husband Ranney was diagnosed with DLB (shortcut) this past fall. To most of us it seemed a sudden thing, but looking back, we could identify occurrences that were definite signs that this was coming.

In this blog we will chronicle some of the heartbreaks and humor that come up when living with DLB. And yes, humor, we laugh, often.

Thursday 30 March 2017

Memory

The short term memory is sometimes seriously impacted by dementia--all kinds of dementias. (Don't worry if you go into another room and forget why when you get there--that's not necessarily dementia.)

Long term memories, however, stay with a person. Let them talk about what happened years ago, listen and agree. It will be good for them.

Here's a strange memory thing that happened with Ranney. While he was at the first Nursing Home (oh, more about that later.) there was a piano in the chapel. Now, apparently Ranney had taken piano lessons for a while as a child. Didn't we all? He had never played during our nearly 49 year marriage--even when we had a piano in the house.


Lupe and Tino visited him one day and he played the piano for them. Not a virtuoso, but not just chopsticks either. Did that long term memory bring that back? Strange, right?

About that first Nursing Home. This was where he went after being released from the hospital. At the door to exit you must enter a code. The code was pretty short and is posted at the door so that visitors can get out. Too simple, as my smart husband just entered the code and left for a walk one evening early on. They call in an "elopement." It became necessary for him to move to a facility with tighter security.
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2 comments:

  1. Julie1 April 2017 at 14:40

    Thank you for these posts. My MIL had Alzheimer's and lost all sense of time and how to do tasks, but thankfully she was calm and happy. She learned new things every day. I think of you often.

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  2. Liz Hinds12 May 2017 at 11:33

    Yep, I had piano lessons too. Wish I'd kept going but I never practised. Perhaps one day I'll find I can play.

    I like the term elopement. Less worrying than escaped!

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