Alzheimer’s makes patients want to walk. Then it makes them fall. But you can’t restrain them. All that caregivers can do is watch helplessly as their loved ones get up and crash, over and over.
Americans often downplay the long-term effects of traumatic experiences, expecting victims to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and move on after a disaster. But as my mother’s experience as an elderly French-American shows, often the negative effects never go completely away.