source: Candace diCarlo/Penn Gazette
This is an interesting article about the director of the Penn Memory Center, Jason Karlawish, MD. Much of the article is about caregiving for someone with Alzheimer’s or dementia. The article notes that Dr. Karlawish introduced a patient’s caregiver to the concept of “loving deceptions.”
She recalls Dr. Kalawish said, “Always be in their moment. If he looks outside, and the sun is shining, and he says it’s dark, you say it’s dark.” At one point, her husband started hallucinating that there were men in the bathroom. She remembers responding: “Oh, yeah—I have them working. They’ll leave soon.” Dr. Karlawish describes caregivers as those who endure “sustained traumas,” wrestling with “the cost-benefit calculus of survival, suffering, and encroaching mortality.” Another caregiver mentions the boredom those with dementia experience. The article notes that Dr. Karlawish is interested in how others perceive those with advanced dementia, and how these perceptions influence the decisions made about care.
Read more: The Humanist Is In