Elderly Patients Need More Attention and More Repeated Reminders
As people age, the brain degenerates. The recent memory of the elderly is generally poor, but long-term memory may not be much affected. This leads children to be misled by their parents' clear long-term memory into mistakenly thinking the parents' recent memory is also good; this is an illusion. In fact, a typical symptom of early Alzheimer's disease is that the patient's long-term memory is fairly good while recent memory is very poor.When we care for elderly patients at home, we must not take it for granted that they can remember as many things as young people. In recent years I have clearly felt my father's recent memory growing worse year by year; now he often holds something in his hand yet anxiously searches everywhere for it. Things agreed on will be forgotten within an hour. If we do not remind him an hour later, he will have forgotten completely some earlier arrangements. For example, if I tell him the night before how to decoct the Chinese medicine I prescribed, by the next morning he has forgotten. If he needs to take medicine for an illness, I now have to remind him again and again.My father himself has realized this, so now for important matters he repeatedly tells the family to remind him, even writing things down in a notebook. From time to time he also reminds himself; only in this way will he not miss the important things. Of course, this decline in recent memory does not mean his thinking ability has deteriorated much; in fact his mind is still sharp, and he can consider many issues more thoroughly than I can—it is just that his recent memory is far worse than before.So once people grow old, handling daily affairs in life becomes increasingly difficult, and their ability to care for themselves declines. Only a tiny number of people remain sharp-eyed and clear-minded past a hundred; the great majority cannot fight off aging and degeneration. As children, we must understand this. Some children who previously lacked experience caring for the elderly may even have emotional reactions—such as anxiety or anger—because of some of the elderly person's changes; these are all behaviors born of a lack of correct understanding of the physiological signs of aging.We must know that, however much our parents refuse to admit they are old, aging will make their memory decline and their reactions slower than before. When people grow old, the brain inevitably degenerates, and the world of consciousness can no longer be entirely dominated by themselves. At such times, the better the children care for them, the higher the elderly person's quality of life; the poorer the care, the more both the elderly person's quality of life and lifespan are affected.If the elderly person's body is basically normal, that is one thing; but if they are unhealthy and need medication, children had better give more attention and care. Some drugs have relatively strong side effects, so when the elderly take them, children must watch closely. For example, when an elderly person takes drugs that may cause diarrhea or bleeding, children should check every day and frequently remind them how to take and stop the medication.Such drugs should be discontinued once symptoms ease, but sometimes the elderly may forget, and family members need to remind and supervise. If they overuse laxatives, it can lead to collapse; if they overuse thrombolytic drugs, it can easily cause gastric hemorrhage or even cerebral hemorrhage, all of which are very dangerous and sometimes even fatal.If we observe carefully in daily life, we can actually discover the degree of brain degeneration in our own elderly family members from everyday details. Once we find that an elderly family member's brain has degenerated quite seriously, we should promptly adjust the ways and methods of caring for them.