World Alzheimer’s Day

Today is September 21, World Alzheimer’s Day. Here is a poem that brings together the pain, sorrow and helplessness of watching a loved one with Alzheimer’s.

WATCH YOUR ELDERLY

— By Dr Anil Chawla

She was always at the door wanting to go out,

She knew they had come and they called her out.

Thus for house keys, she was always on the look out,

‘Who locked the door? Give the keys, I must go out.’

She tried to open the door with whatever she found,

Be it the car keys, the scissors, even a tablet round.

She would stand at the window asking them for keys,

‘Get me the keys, do give me the keys.’

Finding the main door closed one day,

She thought there must be another way.

She entered the bathroom, was confronted by the mirror,

She returned saying, ’A grey haired old lady is blocking my way!’

She always tried to cook for her long gone Dad,

She wanted to make dough to make bread for her Dad.

She made the dough from the washing machine soap one day,

We kept the ‘Tide’ box on top of the fridge from that day.

Ask her to brush her teeth:’ I have already done that!’

Please take a bath: “Well, why again, why never you?”

Please flush the toilet:’Why should I, you used it, why don’t you?’

Please change the clothes: ‘What is wrong, they are clean.’

Please come, eat your food, ‘No, I am not the least hungry!’

Please go sleep on your bed: ‘No, I’ll sleep here on the sofa!’

Let’s go for a walk: ‘No, I don’t want to go, you go!’

To any suggestion she was always in the mode called,’No!’

For hours on end she will talk to herself,

She’ll talk to her sisters and others just by herself.

She will ask questions and give prompt answers by herself.

Noisy and often loud, she kept busy all by herself.

She would often laugh and giggle with them,

She would sometimes cry for the death of someone.

When in a ‘self-talking attack’, she was hard to distract,

She won’t sleep herself, nor let us rest!

Her son came to see her from a far of land,

After two days she told him, ‘Why you are wasting your time?’

“Go, do your work or your wife will throw you out this time.”

Poor fellow felt bad when he saw what he saw of his Mom this time.

We went to the doctor and told him her story,

He diagnosed her Alzheimer’s; which is around 20% of elderlys’ story (1).

He gave some medicines to keep her calm and for sleep,

But the course he said is unremitting till the final sleep!

(1)  Hebert LE, Scherr PA, Bienias JL, Bennett DA, Evans DA (August

2003). “Alzheimer disease in the US population: prevalence estimates

using the 2000 census”. Arch. Neurol. 60 (8): 1119–22. ‘Alzheimer

prevalence was estimated to be 1.6% in the year 2000 both overall and

in the 65–74 age group, with the rate increasing to 19% in the 75–84

group and to 42% in the greater than 84 group.’

Dr Chawla has 37 years of experience in the medical field. His work has ranged from being a full-time senior consultant in Medicine at IBRA, Oman; Royal Hospital, Oman; Salmaniya Medical Center, Bahrain to being a lecturer-professor at reputed institutes like Oman Medical College; AIIMS and Maulana Azad Medical College in India. He is M.B.B.S, M.D (Medicine-PGI, Chandigarh), M.R.C.P (U.K), F.R.C.P(Glasgow)