When people have Alzheimer’s, there’s a general tendency to give up on them in other respects. No one really knows or can know how much sensation or input people with Alzheimer’s continue to have, but it seems shortsighted and a little insane to think that they don’t need such basic amenities as eyeglasses.
Of Course My Mom Still Needs Glasses
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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It is the culture we have arrived at. After 40 years of identity politics, all we know to do is practice random acts of marginalization against each other. So whites turn against blacks, blacks turn against the Jews, the Jews turn against the Muslims, the Muslims turn against the gays, the gays …
If you have no capacity to generate income for someone else in some way, you are irrelevant, unwanted, and a nuisance. At all sorts of hospitals and care facilities, the staff ignores and demeans the patients. Why? They’re trying to provide excellent patient care outcomes but these goddamned patients and their whingeing kids keep pestering them to provide care to the patients.
This is what comes after a lifetime of working for a living somewhere where people were, regularly, thrown out (surplus to requirements) and no one cared what happened afterward. No matter how much loyalty you provided, you got thrown out.
And before the first job? College. Does anyone really think a college gives a care about the students? If you do, I have this sliver off of the One True Cross that I happen to need to sell to make some quick cash.
And as always, Ted, my sympathies to you. This is a very rough patch to navigate.
In neurology/clinical psychology they distinguish between disorders depending on whether patients have a direct awareness of their loss. In Alzheimer’s people generally speaking do not. This may sound macabre, but this lack of awareness of loss is a blessing in many ways at least in terms of quality of life for the patients. (Imagine how freaked out you’d be if you i.e. are constantly reminded of losing your ability for language by hearing gibberish when people talk, trying and failing to put your loss into words).
In contrast, Alzheimer patients often have a tendency to acquiesce and become passive. This makes it easier to manage their problems and care for them, and arguably allows them their share of happiness under difficult conditions – provided they are taken good care of… however it also makes it easier to “warehouse” them.
So Ted is 200% right on this – actually we do know that their sensory experience is just fine. If a person already has a hard time matching the (unblurred) faces around them to their memories of their family and caregivers why give them an extra hard time by failing to correct their vision?