Transcript:

Hi.  My name is Dr. Kurt Klauburg.  I’m a geriatric psychiatrist with Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital and here today to talk with you about families and how families deal with loved ones who suffer with mental illness in late life or with dementia.  One of the more difficult concepts for families to understand is that when their loved one suffers with dementia, that that loved one is under the influence of a disease; and that that disease is very slowly robbing them of their ability to both understand and process information and, in particular, to understand what is happening in the here and now or here and the present.  

People many times will ask me well, why is it that dad can’t remember that I’m his oldest son, or why did grandma forget that we spent last summer at the beach.  Well, the reason is because of the disease process and that memories as memories are evaporating with dementia will leave from forward back, from the most recently formed to the oldest last.  The most recently in is the first out, so to speak.  And as memories progressively evaporate, the memories that are most recently formed are the first to go.

Another concept that people find more difficult to understand is that the person who suffers with this disease, of course, didn’t ask for it, they don’t want that, and they’re not doing things that they do on purpose.  People will ask many times well, I told dad several times that he’s not supposed to drive, but he every morning wants to get in the car and go to work.  He doesn’t understand, I try to make him understand that he doesn’t work any more and he’s retired.  Well, the thing is that dad had lost the ability to understand that concept, that he’s not able to process the fact that he no longer works or has a job, or even understand the fact that in his mind he is functioning 20 years ago.  

And it’s important that we as family members or caretakers are able to put ourselves in that person’s place, and instead of bringing him into our reality we’ve stepped into his and then are able to deal with his problem better.  For more information, please look at the phoebeputney.com website and click under Behavioral Health.